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Judge Maya Guerra Gamble on Monday issued default judgments against Jones and his outlet for failing to comply with court orders to provide information on the lawsuits brought against him by the parents of two children killed in the shooting .
Parents’ attorney, Mark Bankston, told CNN in a written statement that the rulings gave his clients “the closure they deserve.”
He added: “Mr. Jones has had ample opportunity to take these lawsuits seriously and to obey the rule of law. He has chosen not to, and now he will face the consequences of this 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 school – 20 of whom were young children – before committing suicide.
Several families of the victims sued Jones for libel in Texas and Connecticut courts.
The Texas judge essentially ruled that Jones and his parent company, Free Speech Systems, “intentionally disobeyed” court orders when they failed to deliver certain documents related to the lawsuits against him.
“The Court finds that the non-respect of the defendants (…) is considerably aggravated by [their] consistent pattern of discovery abuse in all similar cases pending in this Court, ”Gamble wrote in one of his decisions. the rules.”
“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,” the statement said. “We are shocked by what we see as a flagrant abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court. We are determined to ensure that these cases are heard on the merits.”
CNN’s Taylor Romine and Kari Pricher contributed to this report.
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