Jones outraged Sandy Hook parents with his false claims that the mass slaughter of 26 people was staged.
Families of victims of the Sandy Hook mass school shooting have now won all four of their defamation cases against Alex Jones. Jones didn’t comply with the discovery process during the latest suit, failing to produce evidence to support his false claims that the 2012 mass shooting was a hoax.
Jones outraged Sandy Hook parents with his untrue claims that the mass slaughter of 20 students and six teachers was staged by actors hoping to overturn the Second Amendment. He later acknowledged that the massacre occurred. In court, his lawyers defended his statements as “rhetorical hyperbole” and denied that it was defamation.
Chris Mattei of Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder, which represents the Sandy Hook families, told KCM: “While the families are grateful for the Court’s ruling, they remain focused on uncovering the truth. 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.”
Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis, who took the rare step of finding the conspiracy theorist and Infowars host in default, noted that defendants had not turned over financial and analytics data requested multiple times by the Sandy Hook family plaintiffs, citing their “willful non-compliance.” She is due to hold a hearing on how much Jones should pay in damages at a later date.
It looks likely that Jones will continue to push back. His attorney, Norm Pattis, said in a statement: “Thank God for appellate courts. The ruling is founded neither in law or fact. Indeed, we had appealed Judge Bellis’s decision to refuse to step aside to the state Supreme Court on Friday. We remain confident that, in the end, the Sandy Hook families cannot prove either liability or damages. We think their lawyers know this; hence, the desperate effort to obtain a default.”
