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Alex Jones Called 'Callous' As He Is Now Found Guilty In All Four Sandy Hook Defamation Suits
Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has once again been called "callous" by a judge for refusing to cooperate in his legal battles with Sandy Hook victims' families.
Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has now been found guilty by default in all four defamation cases brought against him by families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims due to his inability to cooperate.
Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis found Jones, 47, liable by default on Monday in the fourth defamation case brought against the Infowars host after he claimed that the 2012 mass shooting was a hoax, the Hartford Courant reports.
She cited Jones and his team of "willful noncompliance" and “callous disregard of their obligation” to fulfill the discovery request as her main decision behind the ruling, CNN reports. Despite numerous requests for financial and analytics data by Sandy Hook family plaintiffs, Jones and his team have still not provided the requested documents.
The default is the most severe sanction Bellis could issue. It means that she has ruled in favor of the Sandy Hook families and that the case will now be turned to a jury to award damages. That also means that there will be no civil trial, as was anticipated.
“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,” Chris Mattei, a lawyer representing the Sandy Hook families, said as a result of the ruling, according to the Courant. “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 end result of this suit greatly resembles a Texas judge’s decision in late September to default Jones in three other defamation lawsuits filed by Sandy Hook victims’ families who live in that state. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin, where Jones hosts Infowars, also called the conspiracy theorist "callous. As she entered default judgments against Jones, Infowars and other defendants, she cited their “flagrant bad faith and callous disregard” of court orders to turn over documents to the victims’ families.
The shooting at the heart of the lawsuits killed 20 first-graders and six educators. The gunman fatally shot his mother at their Newtown home before going to the school, and then killed himself before police could detain him. The shooting was portrayed on Jones’ Infowars show as a hoax and that the goal of the hoax was to increase demand for gun control. Jones has since acknowledged the school shooting did actually happen.
"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," Mattei said, according to CNN. "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."
