AUSTIN, Texas – When spreading lies harm private people, are the courts their best refuge? A trial to decide how much conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones must pay a Sandy Hook family for smearing them tries to answer that question.
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, who died at Sandy Hook, are asking for $150 million in damages for years of torment and intimidation they endured following the words. Mr. Jones lied about them on his Infowars, Austin. -on site and broadcasts. They are suing him in the first case of three tests in which a jury will decide how much he must pay the relatives of 10 people killed in the December 14, 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. , planned by the government as an excuse for gun control.
Mr. Jones passed away last year a series of cases of defamation of Sandy Hook by default, sets the stage for damage tests.
Mr. Heslin, Mrs. Lewis and JT Lewis, Jesse’s brother, will testify this week.
More important than money, parents say, is society’s verdict on a culture where the spread of misinformation damages lives and destroys reputations, yet those who spread it rarely must be responsible. Mark Bankston, the parent’s attorney, told the jury in his opening statement last week: “Words are free, but lies come at a cost. “This is a case of making a change.”
But the trial shows how difficult it is to counter the views of hard-line conspiracy theorists. During nearly three days of testifying last week, Infowars corporate representative Daria Karpova upended the bogus claims, even refusing to rule out the possibility that the trial was a staged event. She chose Mr Jones as her victim, worried for his health and said the Sandy Hook lawsuits cost him “millions of dollars”.
That statement allows the family’s attorney to share records with the jury that show Infowars has racked up more than $50 million in annual revenue in recent years.
The focus of the trial was a June 2017 episode of NBC’s “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly,” in which Ms. Kelly briefly introduced Mr. Jones. During the broadcast, Mr. Heslin protested Mr. Jones’ denial of the shooting. He recalled his final moments with Jesse, saying, “I held my son with a bullet hole through his head.”
Mr Jones and Owen Shroyer, a lieutenant of Mr Jones at Infowars, then aired programs implying that Mr. Heslin had lied. “Will there be a clear explanation from Heslin or Megyn Kelly?” Mr. Shroyer told Infowars. “I won’t hold your breath.”
Sandy Hook School Massacre
Lawyers say the three trials serve as lessons for other cases against conspiring defendants, from the January 6 launch fundamentalists to Trump allies sued for false claims that voting machine manufacturers helped “steal” the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Jones also under supervision for his role in the events surrounding the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
“These Sandy Hook parents have spent years of their lives and sacrificed whatever was left of their privacy to enlighten misinformation peddlers, not just seeking justice. for their children, but also for those who profit from tragedy to consider their consequences. Karen Burgess, a probationary attorney at Burgess Law in Austin who represented the Dominion Voting System when it was sued by Texas conspiracy theorists who say the firm helped orchestrate the five-year vote 2020. Facing sanctions from the court, the conspiracy theorists dropped their lawsuit against the company.
Attorneys for the Sandy Hook family say a sentencing, expected this week in the first trial, could send a signal to other conspiracy masters about the costs of lies. online and create a chain of events that can shut down Infowars.
However, the way forward is still unclear. On Friday, Mr. Jones brought Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, Bankruptcy Chapter 11, which usually automatically suspends all pending litigation. However, Free Speech Systems has asked the bankruptcy court to remove that automatic time so that the ongoing trial can continue to rule. That recommendation is set for a hearing Monday morning in a bankruptcy court in Victoria, Texas. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of the Travis County District Court said the trial would proceed.
Family attorneys say a grand jury award this week coupled with bankruptcy could threaten Infowars’ operations, but many details about Mr. Jones’ current finances remain obscure.
For now, the filing will adjourn the two remaining Sandy Hook damages hearings, both scheduled for September.
In court last week, Mr. Jones’s lawyers offered defenses to other defendants in political defamation cases: Our national discourse has been contaminated with disinformation. , they say who really knows what is right or wrong?
Federico Andino Reynal, Mr. Jones’ attorney, blamed mainstream media reports about Sandy Hook for bogus theories spread by Mr. Jones.
Mr Reynal said: “He has seen what he considers to be so many lies, so many cover-ups and so many truths that he has become prejudiced. “He was looking at the world through dirty glasses. And if you look at the world through dirty glasses, everything you see is dirty.”
But Infowars employees testified that they did not check easily available information about Sandy Hook – or more – before making their inflammatory claims. Lawyers for Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis, using internal emails and testimony from Infowars employees, showed how Mr Jones and his top lieutenants ignored numerous warnings that the spread continued. Sandy Hook’s lies would harm survivors and get Infowars into legal trouble.
In one video, a former employee, Rob Jacobson, said he had repeatedly sent these warnings to Infowars employees, “just to get laughs and jokes”.
The NBC episode, shown in court, was particularly impressive. In it, Mr. Jones made many damaging false statements, including dismissal a 2017 suicide bombing killed 22 adults and children at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, as an attack on “a wide range of liberal trends” who support “Muslim” immigration.
Mr. Shroyer also testified that he failed to verify a false report about the episode that smeared Mr. Heslin because he did not have the time.
At trial last week, Mr. Jones’ seat at the defense desk was usually empty. His attorney, Mr Reynal, declined to say whether he testified, adding that Mr Jones was responsible for his defense. Mr Reynal told the judge Mr Jones’s absence was because of a “health condition” which Mr Jones, speaking outside court, described as an untreated hernia.
But he continued to air his show, where he and Mr. Shroyer mocked the trial last week, violation of a judge’s order do not comment on it. When Mr. Jones arrived in court, he arrived in his car and sat in the courtroom surrounded by bodyguards. Last week, Mr Reynal held up his middle finger in the face of the family’s lawyer during an evidence dispute that almost ended in a scuffle.
The proceedings affected Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis. They hired security after discovering people waiting for them outside their hotel, and they’ve heard Infowars loyalists describe them as pawns in Mr. Jones’ pursuit of online influence.
In court testimony on Thursday, Mr. Shroyer argued that it was the lawsuits, not his and Jones’ lies, that exacerbated the families’ suffering. “I am very upset that this continues,” he said, citing the “huge negative effects on my career and livelihood.”
