Alex Jones: Infowars host is responsible for damages triggered by his false claims on the Sandy Hook shooting, judge rules
By: Aya Elamroussi (CNN)
I hope they take every last penny he has
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
(CNN) Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who hosts the right-wing commentary website Infowars, was found legally responsible in two lawsuits for damages caused by his claims surrounding the 2012 Sandy Hook school mass shooting, according to court documents released Thursday.
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble issued default judgments on Monday against Jones and his outlet for not complying with court orders to provide information for the lawsuits brought against him by the parents of two children killed in the shooting. The rulings, which were first reported by the Huffington Post, effectively mean that Jones lost the cases by default. A jury will convene to ascertain how much he will owe the plaintiffs, the report said. An attorney for the parents, Mark Bankston, told CNN in a written statement that the rulings offers his clients "the closure they deserve." He added: "Mr. Jones was given ample opportunity to take these lawsuits seriously and obey the rule of law. He chose not to do so, and now he will face the consequences for that decision." Jones falsely claimed that the December 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was a "giant hoax" carried out by crisis actors on behalf of people who oppose the Second Amendment. The shooter killed 26 people at the school -- 20 of whom were young children -- before killing himself. Alex Jones says 'form of psychosis' made him believe events like Sandy Hook massacre were staged. Several families of the victims sued Jones for defamation in both Texas and Connecticut courts. The Texas judge essentially ruled that Jones and his parent company, Free Speech Systems, "intentionally disobeyed" court orders when they didn't hand over certain documentations related to lawsuits against him. "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 in one of her rulings. "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." In 2019, Jones acknowledged the shooting was real during a sworn deposition he made as part of a defamation case brought against him by Sandy Hook victims' families. Jones' attorney, Brad Reeves, declined to comment when reached by CNN on Thursday, but a statement posted on Infowars from attorney Norm Pattis said the court's decisions were "stunning." "It takes no account of the tens of thousands of documents produced by the defendants, the hours spent sitting for depositions and the various sworn statements filed in these cases," the statement said. "We are distressed by what we regard as a blatant abuse of discretion by the trial court. We are determined to see that these cases are heard on the merits."
CNN's Taylor Romine and Kari Pricher contributed to this report.
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So he defaulted on the case by not producing information ordered by the court. It takes a rather large amount of arrogance to just ignore a court's orders
Trump will take his cue from this and refuse to provide documents and information.
I hope that fucker gets turned into a vegetable in prison.
A pumpkin with a hole in it?...
He is already a turkey so his cell mates will provide the stuffing.
Good, I hope that they take every last penny that POS has or ever will have.
Agreed, but he has already probably insulated himself from having to pay damages, has no assets in his personal name, and will simply laugh off financial claims against him. If he has done anything criminal I hope he will be dealt maximus sentences without parol.
I am betting that he has offshore accounts.
Good. Alex Jones is one of the bigger creeps out there, and I'm not talking about his weight...although it is a shoe that fits...
About time - now let's see if they can get him to comply.
He should also be held responsible for much of the vaccine hesitancy in this country.
Good point!
He's not the only one who should be held accountable for this - look to any republican governor fueling/fanning the flames against masking, etc.
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The governors only oppose mandates, not the mask or the vaccine voluntarily used or taken.
The problem with that position is that it lacks rational consistency.
We already have many mandates. I have to wear pants when I go out in the world. Women have to cover their breasts. Constructions workers have to wear hard hats. Boaters have to wear life jackets. Drivers have to wear seatbelts. Kids in cars have to be in child seats. Vehicles have to be equipped with seatbelts, lights, and air bags. Those are laws that are permanent and you don’t see the governors trying to undo them.
And now these governors want to object to a temporary mask mandate intended to curb infection and death from a disease that has already killed 700,000 Americans, and almost 5 million people worldwide. It is currently the third leading cause of death in this country and multiple scientific studies have demonstrated that the masks can inhibit transmission of the virus.
If you want to claim you don’t believe in masks, then go have surgery and tell your surgeon to leave his mask off.
Americans need to grow up and put on a mask.
As for the vaccine, I could see objecting to it if it weren’t FDA approved and we didn’t already have many other vaccine mandates. Vaccines and vaccine mandates are not a new thing.
So “I just object to the mandate” is, frankly, horse shit.
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So... They're only very conservative? Got it.
And for Trump! Jones and his ilk got him elected...
I have two relatives that I will never be able to persuade to get vaccinated entirely because of him. Every time I bring up the subject they turn him on. And they are both otherwise well to the left of me politically.
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