Infowars’ Alex Jones Found Guilty In All Four Sandy Hook Shooting Defamation Cases
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Infowars‘ Alex Jones was found guilty in all four defamation against the families of the brutal shooting massacre in Sandy Hook, CT.
Hartford Courant: A Connecticut judge has ruled conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is responsible for all damages in the defamation lawsuits brought against him by the families of those killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting after his repeated claims that the Newtown massacre was a hoax.
Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis issued a default in the lawsuits Monday morning after years of what she found to be inappropriate conduct by Jones’ attorneys regarding depositions and the “callous disregard of their obligation” to turn over financial and web analytics data as ordered by the court.
The default is the most severe sanction Bellis could issue, ruling in favor of the Sandy Hook families and sending the case directly to a jury to award damages without the much-anticipated civil trial.
“Mr. Jones is very used to saying whatever he wants to say from the comfort of his own studio, but what I think this case has shown is that when he is forced to defend his conduct in a court of law and comply with court orders, that it’s a very different ballgame,” said attorney Chris Mattei, a lawyer representing the Sandy Hook families. “The fact that the court was left with no choice but to default him shows just how unwilling Mr. Jones was to have his conduct exposed to the light of day in front of a jury.”
The defaults are the latest turn in the highly contentious legal battle against Jones by parents of several children killed in the horrific 2012 shooting that left 20 first graders and six educators dead. The families sued Jones for defamation after he repeatedly portrayed the Newtown massacre as a hoax on his online Infowars show, ostensibly designed to prompt new gun control measures.
The families’ attorneys have argued Jones deliberately capitalized on the conspiracy theories about the shooting order to grow his online Infowars audience, growing the reach for the products he sold online and in turn his companies’ profits. They sought detailed financial ledgers and web analytics data in an attempt to prove a correlation between the company’s growing audience on the back of Jones’ inflammatory rhetoric and his profits, but argued Jones’ defense attorneys have instead lied and obscured their way through several iterations of providing that information for more than two years.
Jones had claimed his inflammatory monologues were protected by the First Amendment, even though he now admits he was wrong and has since conceded in court that the shooting did occur.
