A month after losing one nearly $50 million verdict, Alex Jones, conspiracy theorist, is set to go on trial a second time for calling the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting causing several of the victims’ families emotional, psychological harm and a hoax.
With several alternates on how much Jones should pay the families on Tuesday, In Connecticut, a six-member jury will begin hearing evidence, since he already has been found liable for damages to them. Last about four weeks the trial is expected.
Last month to the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay $49.3 million, one of 26 students and teachers killed in a shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012. An appeal is planned, said Jone’s lawyer.
For a larger award the Connecticut case has the potential because it involves three lawsuits which have been consolidated that were filed by 15 plaintiffs, including a former FBI agent who responded to the school shooting and the relatives of eight of the victims.
In Austin Jones, who runs his web show and Infowars brand, Texas, also faces a third trial over the hoax conspiracy in another pending lawsuit by Sandy Hook parents in Texas.
At the upcoming trial in Waterbury there is a lookout, Connecticut, about 18 miles (29 kilometers) northeast of Newtown. Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, which has filed for bankruptcy protection, is also a defendant.
The families and former FBI agent William Aldenberg say they have been confronted and harassed in person by Jones’ followers because of the hoax conspiracy. To abusive comments on social media they also say they have endured death threats and been subjected.
Strangers have videotaped them and their surviving children, said by some of the Plaintiffs. To avoid threats and harassment some families have moved out of Newtown.
During the Texas trial Neil Heslin, Jesse Lewis’ father, testified that “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”.
For any specific amount of damages the families have not asked, some of which may be limited by state laws. However, under the Unfair Trade Practices Act, there are no damage limits.
Jones and his lawyers repeatedly failed to turn over records as required to the families’ attorneys, in all the Connecticut and Texas cases. In response, judges handed down one of the harshest sanctions in the civil legal world; without trials they found Jones liable for damages by default.
On his show for years in a reversal from what he said following the shooting, Jones now says he believes the massacre was real. About the shooting being a hoax but he continues to say his comments involving crisis actors to encourage gun control efforts were protected by free speech rights.
In April during a deposition in the case, a defiant Jones insisted he wasn’t responsible for the suffering that Sandy Hook parents say they have endured because of his words.
Without trials were unfair he also has said the judges’ default rulings against him finding him liable and suggested they were part of a conspiracy to put him out of business and silence him.
He said at the deposition that “If questioning public events and free speech is banned because it might hurt somebody’s feelings, we are not in America anymore”. “They can change the channel. They can come out and say I’m wrong. They have free speech.”
At the Texas trial, however, Jones testified that he now realizes what he said was irresponsible, did hurt people’s feelings and he apologized.
Judge Barbara Bellis, who found Jones liable for damages, will oversee the trial. She is the same judge who oversaw Sandy Hook families’ lawsuit against gun maker Remington, which made the Bushmaster rifle used in the school shooting. In February, Remington agreed to settle the lawsuit for $73 million.
The trial is expected to be similar to the one in Texas, with victims’ relatives testifying about the pain and anguish the hoax conspiracy caused them and medical professionals answering questions about the relatives’ mental health and diagnoses.
Jones also will be testifying, said his lawyer, Norman Pattis.
Pattis wrote in an email to The Associated Press that “To put this trial behind him he is looking forward; it has been a long and costly distraction”.
To the jury Jones’ evidence finances is also expected to be presented.
Texas Jones testified at trial that any award over $2 million would “sink us,” and to buy his merchandise he urged his web show viewers to help keep him on air and fight the lawsuits.
Jones and his company were worth up to $270 million, this has been testified by an economist. Jones faces another lawsuit in Texas over accusations that he hid millions of dollars in assets after families of Sandy Hook victims began taking him to court.
To show relatives of eight victims this story has been corrected, not nine, are suing Jones.
Source:- https://usnewscap.com/for-alex-jones-trial-set-to-begin-in-sandy-hook-hoax-case/
