No time behind bars! Johnny Depp‘s wife, Amber Heard, pleaded guilty to illegally taking her dogs into Australia, but has avoided a criminal conviction for her actions.
Heard, who appeared in court in Queensland, Australia, on Monday, April 18, alongside her famous husband, Depp, pleaded guilty to making a false statement on her immigration card relating to her Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, in April last year.
In exchange for her guilty plea, two illegal-importation charges, which carry a maximum sentence of one year in jail, according to the Associated Press, were dropped.
During the couple’s high-profile appearance in court, a court-mandated apology video was played, which the couple recorded on the Gold Coast the day before.
In the bizarre footage, Depp, 52, and Heard, 29, speak to the camera, expressing the importance of declaring all animals on entering the country and urging others to respect Australia’s biosecurity laws.
In the 42-second video, Depp wryly says Australians are “just as unique” as their wildlife, describing them as “both warm and direct. If you disrespect Australian law, they will tell you firmly.”
The comment appears to be a reference to then Australia’s agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce, who last year declared Depp’s pets had better “bugger off” back to the America, or he’d arrange to have them put down.
After watching the video, and taking time to consider the case, magistrate Margaret Callaghan gave Heard a one-month $1,000 good behavior bond. She declared that the Australian Department of Agriculture “will get more deterrence value from the video than any conviction.”
Watch the couple’s contrite apology in the video above.
