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A Texas judge has ruled that far-right conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones are responsible for damage to families of children killed in the 2012 Newtown massacre in two lawsuits, after refusing to repeatedly produce documents for court cases.
The decisions are “default judgments”, or rare de facto losses, due to Jones’ repeated failure to comply with the disclosure, or the process of producing documents for a court case. The court will call a jury to consider damages.
“The court finds that the non-respect of the accused[…]is greatly aggravated by [their] consistent pattern of discovery abuse in similar cases pending in this court, ”Texas judge Maya Guerra Gamble wrote in a judgment reported by CNN.
“The court concludes that the defendants’ discovery conduct in this case is the result of blatant bad faith and a callous disregard for discovery responsibilities under the rule,” she wrote.
In 2012, a sniper with an AR-15 type rifle entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and shot dead 26 people, including six educators and 20 young children in Newtown, Connecticut.
In the years that followed, families would be plagued with death threats and harassment, prompted by conspiracy theories that the shooting was staged – with Jones among the most prominent promoters of such claims. unfounded.
In just one example, Jones would tell listeners in 2014, “It was all wrong.” He continued: “It hardly happened.” Subjects of such lies, such as Sandy Hook’s parent Lenny Pozner, were sometimes forced to move around multiple times to dodge threats made by followers of conspiracy theorists such as Jones.
In one case, a Florida woman was sentenced to prison after sending several death threats to Pozner. As part of the ruling against her, she was banned from accessing the Infowars website, The Huffington Post reported.
The lawsuits are part of the lawsuits brought by the families of Sandy Hook who seek to hold gunmakers and conspiracy theorists to account.
In another case in 2020, Jones was ordered to pay $ 100,000 to the family of a victim of the Sandy Hook shooting, after failing to produce witnesses for the prosecution. In another case against conspiracy theorists, Pozner won a $ 1.1 million judgment against two men who wrote a book called Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.
The families of Sandy Hook also sued gunmaker Remington. In July, the company offered $ 33 million to settle the case, which alleges the gunmaker’s marketing campaign was intended to attract troubled young men like the one who carried out the massacre.
Despite his repeated claims, Jones said in a 2019 court statement he now believes: “Children have died and this is a tragedy.” However, in a statement posted on the Infowars website on Default Judgments, Infowars’ tone was still defiant.
“The trial court’s default entry into these cases is astounding,” Infowars lawyer Norm Pattis said in a story that called the ruling “Democratic judge” and “100% unconstitutional.”
“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.
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