Former Bodyguards Receive Settlement After Suing Depp for Employment Violations

Two former bodyguards for Johnny Depp, Eugene Arreola and Miguel Sanchez, filed a California lawsuit in May 2018 alleging claiming Depp was in violation of employment law. Sanchez and Arreola claimed they were overworked and not paid overtime. The bodyguards also claimed they were subjected to unsafe working conditions. The lawsuit has now been settled.

Depp came to an agreement with the two former bodyguards who filed suit in 2018 and the case has been closed with all future hearings cancelled. Court documents indicate that the bodyguards reached a conditional settlement the resolves the matter. Settlement details were not released.

Arreola and Sanchez claimed in their lawsuit that Johnny Depp overworked and underpaid them during their time with him as bodyguards. They specifically cited a two-year period during which they described their time on the job as intolerable. They claimed they were expected to act as Depp’s babysitter. The duo claimed that between April 2016 and January 2018, they did not receive any overtime pay and they were deprived of food and rest breaks due to their work looking after the Depp family.

The original lawsuit was riddled with intense allegations. One claim described a situation in which the bodyguards were required to wipe drugs from Depp’s face at a nightclub in order to prevent others around the celebrity from seeing him using. The bodyguards describe their time with Depp during this time period as watching him spiral into a financial hurricane and act as babysitters for his children. One of the bodyguards claimed that one of his major job duties was to ensure that one of Depp’s children was looked after appropriately because they were living in an outhouse on Depp’s compound in Los Angeles.

Arreola and Sanchez asked for unspecified damages and compensation to make up for money they were owed due to overtime violations, etc. The two bodyguards described their job as requiring them to protect Depp from himself and his vices while he was in public – effectively making them caretakers.

Sanchez and Arreola (a 38-year-old LAPD veteran) worked happily for Depp for years while they were employed by a security company the celebrity hired, but then the problems started. Early in 2016, the bodyguards noticed Depp’s’ behavior start to change as well as the atmosphere in his Hollywood Hills compound. He started to make sudden and drastic changes to his staff and management team. The moves resulted in a substantial financial crunch for everyone except Depp.

In April of 2016, in the midst of his rocky marriage with Amber Heard, Depp fired the security company that employed both Sanchez and Arreola, Premier Group International. The bodyguards claim that Depp and his entourage made the change to “cut out the middle man” and hire the bodyguards directly so they could avoid the agency fee.

Once the guards were employed by Depp directly, their pay checks and hours were not properly tracked. They were expected to work 12-hour days and back to back shifts. And their job duties expanded to include safeguarding Depp and others who were around him as they engaged in “illegal activity.” They were often in situations that required more of them that what a bodyguard would reasonably be held responsible for. They were frequently being asked to perform the tasks of drivers for Depp and his family. They were repeatedly asked to drive vehicles that contained illegal substances as well as open containers and minors. They were asked to monitor unstable people in Depp’s life. Sanchez was specifically tasked with looking after one of Depp’s children (either 19-year old Lily rose or 16-year old John Depp III, the lawsuit did not specify which child). In fact, more often than not, Sanchez who was hired to protect Depp’s children, was more often than not the primary caregiver for Depp’s minor child who loved on the Depp compound, but in a separate home. Sanchez was advised to give in to every whim of Depp’s children. He worried that if he didn’t, he would be terminated from his position.

If you are being forced to work in a toxic or dangerous work environment or if you are not being paid overtime as required by federal law, please get in touch with one of the experienced employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.