Topline
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones will have to pay between $25,000 and $50,000 in fines each weekday beginning Friday, until he attends an overdue deposition in preparation for a trial to determine how much he must pay in damages over his claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis ruled Wednesday, just hours after plaintiffs rejected a settlement offer from Jones.
InfoWars host Alex Jones at Capitol Hill on September 5, 2018.
Key Facts
Bellis said Jones would be held in contempt after skipping his March 23 and 24 deposition dates, which Jones claimed he did on doctor’s orders to protect his own health—though it later emerged that the doctor advising Jones was Dr. Benjamin Marble, a conspiracy theorist who called Covid-19 vaccines “poison” on Jones’s InfoWars show, the Independent reported.
Bellis said that the deposition would now take place at the office of plaintiffs’ lawyers in Bridgeport, Connecticut, rather than in Texas, where Jones resides and the InfoWars organization is based, the Associated Press reported.
Just hours before the hearing, Jones offered to settle with the plaintiffs—relatives of eight children killed in the Sandy Hook shooting and one FBI agent who responded to the incident, who claim to have been harassed and threatened as a consequence of Jones’s hoax claims—for $120,000 per plaintiff and offered a “heartfelt apology,” a proposal that was quickly shot down.
Bellis said that, despite Jones’s alleged bad-faith violations of court orders, his contempt citation would be reversed if he attended a two-day deposition by April 15, Reuters reported.
Jones wrote in a statement Wednesday that he believed the case was more about freedom of speech than about the Sandy Hook shooting, minimizing InfoWars’s coverage of the event and complaining that he was targeted by “ambitious lawyers” and “those who hate dissent” despite wishing to resolve the case promptly.
A representative for Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes.
A child gazes from a school bus while passing the St. Rose of Lima Catholic church while mourners … [+]
Key Background
Twenty-six people, including 20 children, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, in a shooting perpetrated by then 20-year-old Adam Lanza. Jones quickly assessed the shooting as a “giant hoax” staged in order to justify increased gun control laws. As a result of these and other false claims about the shooting, some victims’ families were harassed by conspiracy theorists who believe them to be actors. In 2019, Jones admitted that the Sandy Hook shooting did actually occur, blaming his excessive affinity for conspiracy theories on the “trauma of the media and the corporations lying so much.” October 11, Jones was found guilty of defamation in two lawsuits lodged in Texas by Sandy Hook victim’s families not participating in the Connecticut case. District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble described the cases as characterized by persistent abuses of the discovery process on Jones’s part. November 15, Bellis found Jones and InfoWars liable by default in the Connecticut lawsuit, claiming that Jones had intentionally failed to comply with evidentiary rules. Throughout the lawsuits, Jones has complained continually of persecution by judges, the news media and other forces.
Crucial Quote
“These families have been victimized over and over again—first, by losing their loved ones, and, second, by having to deal with the terror of a conspiracy theory movement that thinks they are all actors, thinks they are all politically motivated, thinks this was all done as a stage to try to promote a political agenda in Washington,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told MSNBC after Jones was found liable in the Connecticut lawsuit. “It’s sick.”
What To Watch For
A date has yet to be set for the jury trial to determine damages in the Connecticut lawsuit.
Further Reading
“Alex Jones Says He Testified Before Jan. 6 Committee—And Took The Fifth ‘Almost 100 Times’” (Forbes)
“Alex Jones’ Top 10 Health Claims And Why They Are Wrong” (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2022/03/30/alex-jones-will-be-fined-25k-each-weekday-he-skips-deposition-in-sandy-hook-lawsuit-judge-says/