An Australian court has decided not to pursue perjury charges against actress Amber Heard following allegations that she lied about how her and her ex-husband Johnny Depp’s Yorkshire terriers got into that country in 2015.
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions has decided against charging the 37-year-old actress with perjury for allegedly lying in 2016 about being unaware of the nation’s strict animal quarantine regulations. She brought the then-couple’s dogs Pistol and Boo into the country while Depp was filming his fifth movie in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, Australia’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, a biosecurity watchdog, said in a statement to Page Six.
“Prosecution action will not be taken against … Heard over allegations related to her sentencing for the illegal import of two dogs,” the department said in a statement.
Amber Heard has scored a legal victory as a long-going case against the actress, who was accused of perjury for illegally importing her dogs into Australia, has been dropped.
In 2015, she brought two pups along to former husband Johnny Depp's movie set.https://t.co/heaMnJNvMM
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) August 24, 2023
In 2015, Heard was accused of breaking Australia’s quarantine regulations when she did not declare that she was bringing her dogs to the country upon arrival. When the pups were discovered, the “Aquaman” star was charged with two counts of illegally importing the dogs into the country and one count of producing a false document, a spokesman for the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions told People.
In 2016, Heard pleaded guilty to providing a false immigration document. A judge sentenced her to a one-month good behavior bond, while the charges of illegally importing the dogs into Australia were dropped, ABC News noted.
At the time, Heard’s lawyer denied his client had intended to lie when she did not declare her dogs and instead was simply jet lagged and assumed her assistants had taken care of the paperwork.
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However, during Depp’s London libel trial against The Sun newspaper in 2020, the actor and Heard’s former employee claimed the actress had known about Australia’s quarantine rules, ignored them, and put pressure on a staff member to take the blame for breaking the laws, the Associated Press reported.
The discrepancy in the account of how Heard’s pups got into the country caused prosecutors to look into whether Heard had provided false testimony and lied about her knowledge of Australia’s laws. The investigation also delved into whether an employee had falsified a statutory declaration under duress, the AP noted.
“The department collaborated with agencies, both in Australia and overseas, to investigate these claims against Ms Heard,” the department said in their statement to People. “A brief of evidence was referred to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, who has made the decision not to prosecute in this instance having applied the Prosecution Policy of the Commonwealth.”