A Woods Rogers attorney, Rottenborn represented Amber Heard in Fairfax County alongside Elaine Bredehoft. In opening and closing arguments, he focused on the scope of Heard’s op-ed, which did not name Johnny Depp, and argued that Depp had to prove each element of his defamation claims.
Rottenborn cross-examined Depp using texts, recordings and the parties’ joint divorce statement, which said neither had made false accusations for financial gain. He questioned whether Depp’s career losses predated the op-ed and whether the op-ed caused the losses calculated by Depp’s economic expert. Depp characterized his texts to Paul Bettany about harming Heard as Monty Python humor and denied abusing her. Rottenborn also questioned Raquel Pennington about the May 2016 penthouse confrontation and photographs of Heard’s injuries. Pennington described what she saw but said she did not see Depp strike or throw anything at Heard.
Rottenborn presented hand surgeon Richard Moore, who considered Depp’s finger injury inconsistent with Depp’s account of a thrown vodka bottle. On cross-examination, Moore acknowledged that he had not examined Depp and could not definitively rule out a bottle. When questioning opposing expert Richard Gilbert, Rottenborn established that Gilbert was not offering a causation opinion and corrected his characterization of Heard’s testimony: she had said she did not know how the injury occurred.
On Heard’s counterclaim, Rottenborn questioned Adam Waldman about his public statements calling her allegations a hoax and his contacts with social media personalities. He also elicited Heard’s account of harassment and career harm she attributed to those statements. In rebuttal closing, he argued that Waldman’s statements were attributable to Depp as his agent.
