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Alex Jones of Infowars speaks to media during a visit to U.S. Senate Dirksen offices as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, USA , September 5, 2018.
Alex Jones Host of InfoWars
A Texas judge has ruled that right-wing conspirator Alex Jones is legally responsible for the damage caused by his false claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting nine years ago was a “giant hoax.”
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble on Monday issued default judgments against Jones and her website Infowars for failing to comply with production orders for two lawsuits brought by the families of two children killed in the shooting, according to court documents.
The rulings, released Thursday, mean Jones lost the cases by default. The court will call a jury to decide how much it owes the plaintiffs.
Jones and Infowars attorney Norm Pattis released a statement on Thursday condemning the judge’s ruling.
“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’ attorney Brad Reeves did not immediately respond to the comments.
In 2012, a shooter with an AR-15 type rifle entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 26 people, including six educators and 20 young children in Newtown, Connecticut. Since the shooting, Jones has repeatedly claimed that it was carried out by “crisis actors” who oppose the Second Amendment.
As a result, Jones lost several libel lawsuits brought by families and victims of the shooting. In 2019, for example, Jones was ordered to pay $ 100,000 in court and legal fees to the parents of Sandy Hook victims for promoting lies about the shooting.
During an affidavit for the same case in 2019, Jones admitted that the shooting was real and claimed that “some form of psychosis” had caused him to question whether the event had been staged when ‘it happened in 2012, CNN reported on Friday.
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