Alex Jones found responsible in two Sandy Hook cases

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been found legally liable in two lawsuits for damages resulting from his claims regarding the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, according to court documents released Thursday.

A judge on Monday issued default judgments against Jones and his right-wing Infowars website for failing to comply with orders to provide information for lawsuits brought by parents of two children killed in the shooting, according to CNN. The rulings effectively mean Jones lost the business by default, CNN noted. A jury will decide how much it owes the plaintiffs.

Mark Bankston, an attorney for parents, told CNN the rulings would provide his clients “the closure they deserve.”

“Mr. Jones has had ample opportunity to take these lawsuits seriously and to obey the rule of law,” Bankston told the outlet. “He chose not to do it, and now he will have to face the consequences of that decision.”

Jones and Infowars attorney Norm Pattis released a statement on Thursday slamming the judge’s decision.

“The entry by the court of first instance of default in these cases is astounding,” the statement said. “It does not take into account the tens of thousands of documents produced by the defendants, the hours spent sitting for depositions and the various affidavits filed in these cases.”

“We are shocked by what we see as a flagrant abuse of discretion on the part of the court of first instance,” the statement continued. “We are determined that these cases are heard on the merits.”

Jones falsely claimed that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax carried out by crisis actors and planned by opponents of the Second Amendment. Several families of the victims sued Jones for libel in courts in Texas and Connecticut, where the shooting took place, CNN noted.

“The Court finds that the failure to respect the defendants … is considerably aggravated by [their] consistent pattern of discovery abuse in similar cases pending in this court, the Texas judge wrote in one of her rulings against Jones, according to CNN. “The Court finds that the defendants’ discovery conduct in this case is the result of blatant bad faith and a callous disregard for discovery responsibilities under the rules.”

Jones admitted during a sworn opposition in 2019 that the shooting was real and claimed that “some form of psychosis” had caused him to question whether the event was staged when it happened. produced in 2012.