HARTFORD, Conn. — Infowars host Alex Jones provided to pay $120,000 per plaintiff to resolve a lawsuit by family of Sandy Hook Elementary School capturing victims who mentioned he defamed them by asserting the bloodbath by no means occurred, in keeping with courtroom filings Tuesday. The offer was shortly rejected by the families.
A Connecticut decide discovered Jones accountable for damages in November, and a trial is deliberate to find out how a lot he ought to pay the families.
The plaintiffs mentioned they’ve been subjected to harassment and dying threats from Jones’ followers due to the hoax conspiracy promoted on his present.
The courtroom filings posted on-line mentioned: “Mr. Jones extends his heartfelt apology for any distress his remarks caused.”
Last week Jones defied a courtroom order to attend a deposition close to his residence in Austin, Texas, to offer testimony forward of the trial. Jones mentioned he was ailing. A listening to is scheduled for Wednesday on a request by the plaintiffs to sanction Jones for not cooperating.
Lawyers for the families rejected the settlement offer inside a number of hours, saying in courtroom filings that it was a “transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs and the memory of their loved ones lost at Sandy Hook.”
Twenty first graders and 6 educators had been killed within the 2012 capturing in Newtown, Connecticut. The families of eight of the victims and an FBI agent who responded to the college sued Jones, Infowars and others in Connecticut over the hoax conspiracy. Jones has since mentioned he believes the capturing did happen.
Jones additionally was discovered accountable for damages in related lawsuits filed in Texas by family of Sandy Hook victims, and likewise faces trial later this yr.