Alex Jones set to face second trial in Connecticut over Sandy Hook hoax case

A month after dropping one almost $50 million verdict, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is set to go on trial a second time for calling the Sandy Hook Elementary School taking pictures a hoax and inflicting a number of of the victims’ households emotional and psychological hurt.

A six-member jury with a number of alternates in Connecticut will start listening to proof Tuesday on how a lot Jones ought to pay the households, since he already has been discovered chargeable for damages to them. The trial is anticipated to final about 4 weeks.

Last month, a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay $49.3 million to the dad and mom of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, considered one of 26 college students and lecturers killed in the 2012 taking pictures in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones’ lawyer has mentioned an enchantment is deliberate.

The Connecticut case has the potential for a bigger award as a result of it entails three lawsuits — which have been consolidated — that have been filed by 15 plaintiffs, together with the family of eight of the victims and a former FBI agent who responded to the varsity taking pictures.

Jones, who runs his net present and Infowars model in Austin, Texas, additionally faces a 3rd trial over the hoax conspiracy in one other pending lawsuit by Sandy Hook dad and mom in Texas.

Infowars’ guardian firm, Free Speech Systems, which has filed for chapter safety, can also be a defendant.

Why are the Sandy Hook households suing Jones? 

The households and former FBI agent William Aldenberg say they’ve been confronted and harassed in particular person by Jones’ followers due to the hoax conspiracy. They additionally say they’ve endured loss of life threats and been subjected to abusive feedback on social media.

Some of the plaintiffs say strangers have videotaped them and their surviving kids. And some households have moved out of Newtown to keep away from threats and harassment.

“I can’t even describe the last nine and a half years, the living hell that I and others have had to endure because of the recklessness and negligence of Alex Jones,” Neil Heslin, Jesse Lewis’ father, testified throughout the Texas trial.

The Connecticut lawsuit alleges defamation, intentional infliction of emotional misery and violations of the state Unfair Trade Practices Act. The households declare when Jones talked about Sandy Hook, he boosted his viewers and raked in extra earnings from promoting dietary supplements, clothes and different gadgets.

The households haven’t requested for any certain quantity of damages, a few of which can be restricted by state legal guidelines. There are not any injury limits, nevertheless, underneath the Unfair Trade Practices Act.

In all of the Connecticut and Texas circumstances, Jones and his legal professionals repeatedly failed to flip over information as required to the households’ attorneys. In response, judges handed down one of many harshest sanctions in the civil authorized world — they discovered Jones chargeable for damages by default with out trials.

What does Alex Jones say? 

In a reversal from what he mentioned on his present for years following the taking pictures, Jones now says he believes the bloodbath was actual. But he continues to say his feedback in regards to the taking pictures being a hoax involving disaster actors to encourage gun management efforts have been protected by free speech rights.

During a deposition in the case in April, a defiant Jones insisted he wasn’t answerable for the struggling that Sandy Hook dad and mom say they’ve endured due to his phrases.

He additionally has mentioned the judges’ default rulings in opposition to him — discovering him liable with out trials — have been unfair and instructed they have been a part of a conspiracy to put him out of enterprise and silence him.

“If questioning public events and free speech is banned because it might hurt somebody’s feelings, we are not in America anymore,” he mentioned on the deposition. “They can change the channel. They can come out and say I’m wrong. They have free speech.”

At the Texas trial, nevertheless, Jones testified that he now realizes what he mentioned was irresponsible, did harm individuals’s emotions and he apologized.

What is anticipated on the trial? 

Judge Barbara Bellis, who discovered Jones chargeable for damages, will oversee the trial. She is identical choose who oversaw Sandy Hook households’ lawsuit in opposition to gun maker Remington, which made the Bushmaster rifle used in the varsity taking pictures. In February, Remington agreed to settle the lawsuit for $73 million.

The trial is anticipated to be related to the one in Texas, with victims’ family testifying in regards to the ache and anguish the hoax conspiracy brought about them and medical professionals answering questions in regards to the family’ psychological well being and diagnoses.

Jones additionally can be testifying, mentioned his lawyer, Norman Pattis.

“He is looking forward to putting this trial behind him; it has been a long and costly distraction,” Pattis wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Evidence about Jones’ funds can also be anticipated to be offered to the jury.

Jones testified on the Texas trial that any award over $2 million would “sink us,” and he urged his net present viewers to purchase his merchandise to assist preserve him on air and combat the lawsuits.

But an economist testified that Jones and his firm have been price up to $270 million. Jones faces one other lawsuit in Texas over accusations that he hid tens of millions of {dollars} in belongings after households of Sandy Hook victims started taking him to court docket.