Alex Jones

2022 - 8 - 3

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Image courtesy of "The Washington Post"

Sandy Hook parents confront Alex Jones, say hoax claims created ... (The Washington Post)

Bereaved parents of Jesse Lewis, 6, killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, say Infowars host Alex Jones's conspiracy theories left them in anguish for ...

“It seems so incredible to me that we have to do this — that we have to implore you … to get you to stop lying,” Lewis said. “The internet had questions. I had questions.” “I know you know that. Lewis stressed that she was not part of any “deep state” conspiracy theory. Heslin, who took the stand before Jones arrived at the Travis County Courthouse in Austin on Tuesday, spoke of his grief — compounded with death threats and abuse from strangers that led the parents to fear for their own lives.

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Image courtesy of "The Guardian"

'It's 100% real': Alex Jones admits in court Sandy Hook shooting not ... (The Guardian)

Jones testifies in defamation trial after being sued by parents of victims for $150m for pushing false 'crisis actors' theory.

He is the only person testifying in defense of himself and his media company, Free Speech Systems. You are under oath.” “It was … especially since I’ve met the parents.

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Image courtesy of "NPR"

Alex Jones concedes that the Sandy Hook attack was '100% real' (NPR)

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones testified that he now understands it was irresponsible of him to declare the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre a hoax.

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Image courtesy of "RTE.ie"

Alex Jones claims defamation trial rigged (RTE.ie)

A legal representative for the parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook massacre today showed a jury video of US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones telling ...

It ended when Lanza took his life with the approaching sound of police sirens. Mr Bankston showed video of Jones saying on air Friday that the jury pool was full of people who "don't know what planet they're on". A legal representative for the parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook massacre today showed a jury video of US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones telling his Infowars viewers that the jury in his defamation case was full of people who "don't know what planet they're on".

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Image courtesy of "Axios"

Alex Jones accused of perjury after Sandy Hook parents' lawyer ... (Axios)

"12 days ago, your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone."

"You testified under oath previously that you personally searched your phone for the phrase 'Sandy Hook' and there were no messages." But in an unusual statement on Tuesday, Iranian MP Mohammad-Reza Sabbaghian Bafghi warned that Parliament could ask Khamenei to revise his fatwa if Iran's "enemies... continue their threats." - "You know what perjury is, right?"

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Image courtesy of "NBC News"

Alex Jones says that Sandy Hook was real on second day of testimony (NBC News)

During a contentious cross-examination, Infowars host Alex Jones' claim that he was sucked into lying about the Sandy Hook shooting was undercut and he.

They are among several Sandy Hook families that have filed lawsuits against Jones arguing that his statements that the attack was a hoax have led to years of abuse from his followers. Jones is being sued by Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, whose son Jesse was among the 20 children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. “It’s infinitely now.”

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Image courtesy of "Forbes"

'Do You Know What Perjury Is?': Alex Jones' Lawyers Apparently ... (Forbes)

Attorneys representing the parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims accused InfoWars host Alex Jones of perjury at his defamation damages ...

Jones testified Wednesday that he believes the 2012 massacre that left 20 children and 6 school staffers dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was “100% real,” despite repeatedly peddling conspiracy theories about the shooting having been staged on his radio program. The number represents one of the first purported InfoWars financial records made public. That's how much money InfoWars was making at times in 2018, according to records on Jones’ phone revealed by plaintiffs’ attorneys.

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

Alex Jones Confronted at Trial With Texts Showing Evidence of ... (The New York Times)

The Infowars conspiracy theorist was presented with text messages from his own cellphone showing that he had withheld evidence in defamation lawsuits ...

Mr. Bankston, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook parents Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, also revealed new evidence of Mr. Jones’s failure to produce court-ordered documents related to lies he spread about the mass shooting and its victims. In fact, his losses by default resulted from his failure to produce those materials. In another broadcast, Infowars falsely linked the judge to pedophilia; in another, Mr. Jones questioned the intelligence of the jurors in the case, implying that his political enemies had handpicked “blue-collar” people who were ill-equipped to decide what monetary damages he must pay Ms. Lewis and Mr. Heslin. In written questions submitted to Mr. Jones, jurors took immediate issue with that. In testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, Mr. Jones continued to insist that he had complied with court orders to produce documents and testimony in the run-up to the defamation trials. Mr. Bankston also produced clips from Mr. Jones’s Infowars broadcast in which he aired a copy of a photograph of the judge in Ms. Lewis’s and Mr. Heslin’s case, Maya Guerra Gamble, engulfed in flames. The judge admonished Mr. Jones and his lawyer, F. Andino Reynal, after the Infowars fabulist lied about the matter under oath on Tuesday. The judge also chastised Mr. Jones for telling the jury that he was bankrupt when his bankruptcy filing last week had yet to be adjudicated; the families’ lawyers said it was his latest attempt to delay the upcoming damages trials. He also presented financial records that contradicted Mr. Jones’s claim that he was bankrupt and clips from his broadcasts maligning the judge and jury in the case. Mr. Jones lost those cases by default, after nearly four years of litigation in which he failed to produce documents and testimony ordered by courts in Texas and Connecticut. That set in motion three trials for damages; the one in Austin this week is the first. The text messages were significant because Mr. Jones had claimed for years that he had searched his phone for texts about the Sandy Hook cases and found none. AUSTIN, Texas — In a brutal cross-examination on Wednesday in the trial of the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, a lawyer for Sandy Hook parents produced text messages from Mr. Jones’s cellphone showing that he had withheld key evidence in defamation lawsuits brought by the families for lies he had spread about the 2012 school shooting. The messages, which were apparently sent in error to the families’ lawyers by Mr. Jones’s counsel, revealed that he was also warned about posting a false report about the coronavirus by a staff member calling the potential fabrication “another Sandy Hook.” The Infowars conspiracy theorist was presented with text messages from his own cellphone showing that he had withheld evidence in defamation lawsuits brought by Sandy Hook families.

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Image courtesy of "Sky News"

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones admits Sandy Hook school shooting ... (Sky News)

Jurors in the trial are hearing evidence to determine how much Jones and his media company Free Speech Systems, owe for defaming Neil Heslin and Scarlett ...

"It seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth while you testify," she said. Jurors in the trial are hearing evidence to determine how much Jones and his media company Free Speech Systems owe for defaming Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis. Jurors in the trial are hearing evidence to determine how much Jones and his media company Free Speech Systems, owe for defaming Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose son was killed in the 2012 tragedy.

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Image courtesy of "The Atlantic"

For Once, Alex Jones Is Silent (The Atlantic)

The past two days of the Jones trial have been wrenching and shocking. Today, the plaintiffs' lawyers revealed in dramatic fashion that Jones's lawyers ...

Jones, who relishes flashy stunts, is used to being the one who gets to make the big, gotcha reveal, but today he was on the other end, unable—under threat of contempt of court—to talk his way out of his lies. Near the end of the day, shortly after Jones contended under oath that he was bankrupt, Gamble tore into Jones for “abusing my tolerance and making asides to the jury.” Whenever Jones attempted to speak, Gamble cut him off. But Jones continued to shove his finger in his mouth in front of the judge. “I can interrupt you; you can’t interrupt me.” When Jones suggested that he and Infowars had complied with the lawsuit’s discovery requests, Gamble shut him down. Throughout the trial, Jones has been at his most exposed when the jury has left the room and he’s been forced to confront the authority of Judge Gamble. Gamble has frequently admonished Jones, the way a parent or principal might scold a misbehaving grade-schooler. Jones is used to commanding the microphone for interminable periods, and from the stand, it almost looked like he was back in his studio and about to tear into a signature four-hour broadcast rant. Opposing counsel argued this was a lie as Jones has only declared bankruptcy and not yet proved it.) At one point during a routine line of questioning, Jones told his lawyer, “You can’t be told about the matrix; you have to see it.” Jones’s attorney responded, “Let’s slow down a little bit.” At one point yesterday, Gamble interrupted Jones’s attorney to ask him to “spit his gum out.” Jones immediately stood up to tell the judge he was instead massaging the hole of a recently pulled tooth. But the witness chair is a powerful tool in exposing Jones for what he really is: a reckless individual caught in a web of his own lies. Upon realizing the gravity of the situation, Jones sat stunned and red-faced, looking on the verge of tears. What exactly might come of this discovery is unclear, but it seems likely that we will continue to learn more about the inner workings of Jones’s conspiracist media empire (one message from the trove disclosed that in 2018, Infowars was making as much as $800,000 a day from its online store). The contents of the phone could be turned over to law enforcement, where the material could be relevant in other pending investigations. The only way to shut up Alex Jones, for a moment, at least, is to place him inside a courtroom.

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Image courtesy of "Vanity Fair"

Alex Jones's Lies Blow Up in His Face in Explosive Sandy Hook Trial (Vanity Fair)

It's 100% real,” Jones admitted Wednesday in court, where he also learned that his lawyers accidentally passed along the contents of his phone to the ...

Which, true or not, would seem to be a fully appropriate punishment. On Tuesday, that judge, Maya Guerra Gamble, took Jones to task for lying under oath, telling him, “This is not your show.” If there’s justice in the world, Alex Jones, the infamous conspiracy theorist on trial for the unconscionable, disgusting lies he spread that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, and that the children and teachers who lost their lives that day weren’t actually killed, will have to pay the full $150 million the families suing him for defamation have asked for.

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Sandy Hook family attorney exposes Alex Jones' dishonesty during ... (CNN)

The dishonesty of right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was spotlighted in a Texas court on Wednesday as a lawyer for a pair of Sandy Hook parents ...

It seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth while you testify. And Gamble on Tuesday had also admonished Jones for having violated his oath to tell the truth twice. "You are already under oath to tell the truth," Gamble said Tuesday. "You've already violated that oath twice today, in just those two examples. When reminded Jones had testified under oath that he had searched his phone during the discovery phase of the trial and could not locate messages about Sandy Hook, Jones insisted he "did not lie." In a remarkable moment, Bankston disclosed to Jones and the court that he had recently acquired evidence proving Jones had lied when he claimed during the discovery process that he had never texted about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. The cell phone records, Bankston said, showed that Jones had in fact texted about the Sandy Hook shooting.

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Image courtesy of "Austin American-Statesman"

Alex Jones trial: Jury deliberations underway in Sandy Hook case (Austin American-Statesman)

Jurors have begun determining how much money Alex Jones must pay to the parents of 6-year-old Sandy Hook shooting victim, Jesse Lewis, for defamation.

Jurors also were told that Jones and his company inflicted intentional emotional distress on Heslin and Lewis by repeatedly portraying the Sandy Hook shooting as a hoax from 2012 to 2018, when they filed suit. Jurors also were asked to determine the amount of money that would fairly compensate Heslin for past and future damage to his reputation and past and future mental anguish caused by the defamatory reports. The jurors next will be asked to award punitive damages that are intended as punishment. Heslin testified that he made the statement in an NBC interview in hopes of stopping Jones' campaign and to protect the legacy of his son, who died a hero by yelling "Run!" when the gunman paused. Before hearing closing arguments Thursday, jurors were informed that Jones and Free Speech Systems defamed Heslin in two 2017 InfoWars reports that questioned Heslin's claim that he held his dead son and saw the bullet wound to his head after the shooting. Ten of the 12 jurors agreed on the verdict — the minimum number required for a decision.

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Image courtesy of "RTE.ie"

Alex Jones denied request for mistrial (RTE.ie)

A Texas judge has denied Alex Jones's motion for a mistrial in a defamation case over the US conspiracy theorist's false claims about the Sandy Hook mass ...

The parents claim that Mr Jones took $62 million from the company while burdening it with $65 million in "fabricated" debt owed to PQPR Holdings, a company owned by Mr Jones and his parents. He later acknowledged that the shooting took place and sought to distance himself from previous falsehoods during the trial, telling jurors it was "crazy" of him to repeatedly make the claim that the shooting was a hoax. Federico Reynal, an attorney for Mr Jones, acknowledged during his closing argument that Jones and Infowars reported "irresponsibly" on Sandy Hook but said his client was not responsible for the harassment.

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Image courtesy of "Reuters"

Judge denies Alex Jones request for mistrial in U.S. defamation case (Reuters)

A Texas judge on Thursday denied Alex Jones's motion for a mistrial in a defamation case over the U.S. conspiracy theorist's false claims about the Sandy ...

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com An attorney for the parents, Mark Bankston, used the texts to undercut Jones’ testimony during cross-examination Wednesday. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

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Image courtesy of "MSNBC"

Alex Jones' trial has finally shown the world what he truly is (MSNBC)

Alex Jones' conspiracies about Sandy Hook shootings have been exposed in court, and could cost the Infowars host millions in a Texas trial.

There is no mechanism in the law to make people like Jones act with a semblance of humanity. It is merely all that is left. Jones is on trial to determine how much he will have to pay the parents of Jesse Heslin, who was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. Again, there is no winning when your children have been killed and someone with a large platform has lied about it and apparently caused his followers to harass you for years. It is still worth it to hear and see Jones, a man who perhaps does the impossible and gives conspiracy theorists an even worse name than they deserve, squirm and sweat and finally admit under oath that he lied and that facts are facts. UPDATE (Aug. 4, 2022, 5:28 p.m. ET): On Thursday, a jury ruled Infowars host Alex Jones must pay $4.1 million to the family of a 6-year-old killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

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