The Australian Government definitively closes the case against Amber Heard for the illegal entry of her dogs into the country | People

2023-08-25 10:26:07

Australian authorities have closed the case against Amber Heard for bringing her dogs, Pistol and Boo, into the country illegally more than eight years ago, the government revealed in a statement on Tuesday, August 23. The story goes back to April 2015, when the actress traveled by private jet to meet her then-husband Johnny Depp and her two Yorkshire terriers did not pass the mandatory 10-day quarantine protocol. The Government came to threaten to put down the pets, and the incident caused rivers of ink to flow —much less, yes, than the announcement of her divorce months later. The actress was convicted in 2016, but she was facing a possible criminal case over allegations that she lied to the Australian court. Accusations arising from differences between what his defense stated during the 2016 trial in Australia and what a former employee said about this story in another trial held in London in 2020, in which Depp sued The Sun for defamation by accusing him of being an abuser .

Now Australia’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, tasked with monitoring biosafety laws, has dismissed the case and confirmed that the director of public prosecutions has decided not to prosecute the 37-year-old actress again. “There will be no prosecution action against actress Amber Heard over allegations related to her sentencing for the illegal importation of two dogs into Australia in 2015″, states the government document.

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Amber Heard arrived in Australia on the actor’s private plane on April 21, 2015, which also included Pistol and Boo. Although in principle those who arrive by jet go through the same controls as the rest of the passengers, the pets skipped the security protocol. They were discovered when an employee of Depp’s, who was in Australia filming the fifth movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean saga, took them to a dog groomer in the Gold Coast city. Authorities gave the couple 50 hours to leave the country with their animals or they would be euthanized. “Mr. Depp decided to break the laws of our nation,” then-Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce told a news conference. The situation worsened when Joyce warned of the possibility that the dogs could not re-enter the United States: “The question is that if they broke our laws, did they follow the correct laws in the United States?”, he said during an interview in the public network ABC. “My concern is: Will they be allowed into the United States? And if not, do they have somewhere to go? He warned that Pistol and Boo could end up being “dogs without a state.” The couple managed to land with their dogs in the United States, after the Australian ministry issued an export certificate, facilitating their access. But the issue generated quite a stir on social media, spawning the hashtag #WarOnTerrier and even a petition to save Boo and Pistol that racked up thousands of signatures.

In 2016, Amber Heard pleaded guilty to falsifying immigration documents, a crime that could be punished by up to a year in prison. However, the most serious charge, that of illegal importation of animals, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $73,825 (65,378 euros), was withdrawn. In the end, the actress published a video apologizing for the matter – in which she appeared with Depp – and was only sentenced to show good behavior for a month and, if she did not, pay a bail of $ 767 (679 euro).

The media mishap seemed closed until the case against him was reopened in 2020, as a result of a testimony in the trial for the lawsuit that Depp filed against the British newspaper The Sun for accusing him of being a violent husband, a trial that the actor He lost in November 2020. According to ABC, in 2016 one of the actress’s lawyers assured that she was unaware of Australian immigration laws and denied that she lied on purpose by not declaring the entry of Pistol and Boo into Australia. But the statement four years later from a former employee of Johnny Depp, Kevin Murphy, suggested that the story had been another. Murphy claimed that Amber Heard was indeed aware of the quarantine regulations, that she insisted on traveling with the dogs, and that she had pressured an employee to take the blame. The Australian government then launched an investigation into a possible case of perjury. Now, three years later, the agriculture department has decided to drop the latest charges against Amber Heard. Authorities say the decision was made after working with agencies in Australia and abroad that investigated whether the interpreter lied and whether an employee had falsified a statement under duress, the Associated Press reports.

Thus, they consider closed a judicial problem that Amber Heard chained with the dirty legal battle against Johnny Depp, although in that she lost. The Welcome to Zombieland or Aquaman actress became the owner of Pistol and Boo after her divorce in 2017.