Conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones, who claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a “giant hoax,” was found liable Monday for damages in lawsuits brought by parents of children killed in the shooting.
Judge Barbara Bellis took the rare step of defaulting Jones in the defamation lawsuits for his and his company’s “failure to produce critical material information that the plaintiffs needed to prove their claims.” The default means the judge found in favor of the parents and will hold a hearing on how much damages he should pay.
Monday’s ruling marks the fourth defamation lawsuit Jones has lost against Sandy Hook families, including three in Texas.
“While the families are grateful for the Court’s ruling, they remain focused on uncovering the truth,” Chris Mattei, an attorney representing the families that sued Jones, said in a statement Monday.
“As the Court noted, Alex Jones and his companies have deliberately concealed evidence of the relationship between what they publish and how they make money. Mr. Jones was given every opportunity to comply but, when he chose instead to withhold evidence for more than two years, the Court was left with no choice but to rule as it did today. While today’s ruling is a legal victory, the battle to shed light on how deeply Mr. Jones has harmed these families continues.”
Norm Pattis, Jones’ attorney, did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment.
Jones outraged Sandy Hook parents by falsely claiming the mass slaughter was staged by crisis actors whose goal was to overturn the Second Amendment. He later acknowledged the massacre occurred. His lawyers defended his speech in court as “rhetorical hyperbole” and denied it was defamation.
Lawyers for the parents claimed Jones and his companies, including Infowars and Free Speech Systems, violated court rules by failing to turn over documents to them, including internal company documents showing how, and if, Jones and Infowars profited from talking about the school shooting and other mass shootings.
A Texas judge also recently issued a default judgement to the Infowars host for two defamation lawsuits, Judge Maya Guerra Game wrote, ruling that Jones and his company are liable for all damages.
“The Court finds that Defendants’ failure to comply … is greatly aggravated by (their) consistent pattern of discovery abuse throughout similar cases pending before this Court,” Gamble wrote. “The Court finds that Defendants’ discovery conduct in this case is the result of flagrant bad faith and callous disregard for the responsibilities of discovery under the rules.”
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She also took Jones to task for his “bad faith approach to litigation, Mr. Jones’ public threats, and Mr. Jones’ professed belief that these proceedings are ‘show trials’.”
A jury will be convened to decide how much Jones will pay Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, the parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, and Scarlett Lewis, the mother of slain 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, their lawyers at the Texas law firm Farrar & Ball said.
Noah and Jesse were two of the 20 first-graders killed when a gunman barged into the school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 and opened fire with a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle. Six school staffers were also killed.
Pattis, last month, criticized Gamble’s ruling in a statement posted on the Infowars website.
“The trial court’s entry of a default in these cases is stunning,” he wrote. “It takes no account of the tens of thousands of documents produced by the defendants, the hours spent sitting for depositions and various sworn statements in these cases.”
Two years ago, Jones lost another defamation suit in Texas brought by Jesse’s dad, Neil Heslin, and was ordered to pay $100,000 in damages. In that case, the judge ruled that Jones’ defense team “intentionally disregarded” an order to provide witnesses to Heslin’s lawyers.
During the Infowars host’s custody battle with his ex-wife, Kelly Jones, in 2017, his lawyer said the Jones — who told his listeners bogus stories about the Sandy Hook school shooting, made false claims that the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and accused Hillary Clinton of operating a pedophile ring out of a Washington pizza joint — is really “a performance artist.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
