Johnny Depp Has Reached A Settlement In The “City Of Lies” Assault Case
I guess Johnny Depp was just too tuckered out from his last messy lawsuit to bring his most current messy lawsuit to trial because Johnny has gone ahead and made his 2018 assault lawsuit go away before it could turn into a questionable jury-filled media circus. It was said that Johnny really wanted to settle the lawsuit that came out of an alleged assault that happened on the set of the direct-to-wherever it ended up feature film, City of Lies. Johnny got his wish, and that lawsuit is settled and done with.
In May 2018, it was reported that Johnny did what Johnny does best – aka act like your uncle six Solo cups of bourbon into a Memorial Day bbq – while filming the Notorious B.I.G./Tupac Shakur biopic-ish crime drama City of Lies, then titled LAbrynth. Johnny allegedly attacked a location manager named Gregg “Rocky” Brooks one night in 2017 during filming. According to sources, the time ran out on their location shoot permit, and Rocky informed Johnny as such. Johnny had allegedly been boozing all day and attempted to punch Rocky in the ribs twice. When the punches didn’t really land, Johnny allegedly offered Rocky $100,000 to “punch me in the face right now.’ Getting assaulted at work is obviously not part of the job of a location manager, and so Rocky filed an assault lawsuit against Johnny, and was seeking an unspecified amount of damages. Cut to present day, and Johnny was reportedly scrambling to settle that lawsuit. And they’ve settled. via Deadline:
Two weeks to the day before the scheduled start of the trial brought against Depp by former City of Lies location manager Gregg “Rocky” Brooks in 2018, the parties have come to a deal, it was revealed Monday. In a filing in Los Angeles Superior Court, Brooks’ lawyer Arbella Azizian said a settlement had been reached, kind of.
No terms were made public, and the whole shabang could still be scuttled as can always happen up to the last minute in these things. However, after weeks of behind-the-scenes talks between the sides, it looks like Depp is paying off Brooks to go away and have another lawsuit disappear – much like he did with his ex-business managers in 2018.
That lawsuit Deadline is talking about is from 2018, when Johnny decided to settle the lawsuit he filed against his former business managers of The Management Group, for allegedly mismanaging his money. They counter-sued, claiming that Johnny couldn’t hold onto a coin if it was glued to his palm. Johnny decided to settle that lawsuit, to prevent it from going to trial. TMG was said to be “pleased” with the outcome of the settlement, which kind of makes it sound like Johnny paid them to go away and keep their lips sealed. This lawsuit is as good as done, just so long as some unspecified conditions are met.
“The settlement agreement conditions dismissal of this matter on the satisfactory completion of specified terms that are not to be performed within 45 days of the date of the settlement,” reads the notice of settlement in the docket. “A request for dismissal will be filed no later than 1/5/2023.”
As for this lawsuit, it’s not known how much Johnny might have tossed at Rocky. But Johnny has also claimed many times to be very much broke. So where did he get the money from? Certainly not from the $10,350,000 Amber Heard owes him from their defamation trial (according to Amber, she doesn’t have it, and wants the verdict tossed for reasons of possibly jury misconduct). I wonder if the settlement conditions were set by Rocky himself. Knowing Johnny’s history with money, the only condition in place should be that Johnny actually provides a valid check or bank-issued money order. No, Johnny, the court will not accept an IOU scribbled on the back of a bar napkin!
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