AUSTIN, Texas – For 90 searing minutes in a courtroom Tuesday, a Sandy Hook mother confronted conspiracy televangelist Alex Jones with the havoc she said his lies about the mass shooting that killed her son had caused of her family and on the national discourse.
“Truth – truth is so important to our world. Truth is what we base our reality on, and we have to accept that in order to have a civil society,” Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse, 6, was among the 20 first-graders and six teachers killed in 2012. at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Mr. Jones said from the witness stand.
Mr. Jones questioned the events at Sandy Hook, but ”you know that’s not true,” she said, glaring at him as he spun around at the defense table. “When you say these things, there is a segment of society that believes you are actually dangerous.”
It was a landmark moment in the years-long legal battles between the Sandy Hook families and the Infowars fabulist, who for years broadcast lies that the shooting was a government hoax and that the families were “actors” in the conspiracy. Mr Jones, who regularly berated the families on air, rarely appeared in the same room as them, despite being found liable in a series of defamation suits brought by the families of 10 victims.
The trial, involving Ms Lewis and Neil Heslin, Jessie’s father, is the first of three in which jurors will decide how much Mr Jones should pay for defaming the families. Mr Jones has largely avoided appearing in court. But due to a scheduling mishap, as he prepared to testify in his own defense, he found himself face-to-face with Ms. Lewis, who addressed him personally during her testimony.
The Sandy Hook School Massacre
Card 1 of 5
A devastating attack. On December 14, 2012, a 20-year-old gunman killed his mother and then entered the elementary school armed with semi-automatic handguns and a semi-automatic rifle. There he killed 26 people, 20 of them children, before killing himself.
The pursuit of gun control. Then-President Barack Obama vowed to “use the power that this office has” to stop such massacres from happening again. Although legislative efforts to pass an assault weapons ban and expand background checks have failed, a new wave of activism focused on gun control has gained momentum since the shooting.
“Alex, I want you to hear this,” said Mrs. Lewis, fixing him in her eyes. “We are more polarized than ever as a country. Part of it is because of you. Mr. Jones shook his head nervously.
The Sandy Hook families endured years of torture and threats after Mr. Jones, hours after the shooting, dismissed Sandy Hook as a “false flag” operation planned by the government as a pretext to confiscate firearms from Americans.
Business records released during the proceedings showed that Mr Jones made more than $50 million a year selling dietary supplements, gun accessories, bulletproof vests and doomsday gear, spreading conspiracy theories about millions listening to his radio and online show. Jesse Lewis’ parents want $150 million in damages. More important than money, Ms. Lewis said Tuesday, “I hope to achieve an era of truth.”
At the heart of the trial, which is set to conclude this week, is a June 2017 episode of NBC’s “Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly,” in which Ms. Kelly profiled Mr. Jones. In the broadcast, Mr. Heslin protested Mr. Jones’ denials about the shooting. He recalled his last moments with Jesse, saying, “I was holding my son with a bullet hole in his head.” Mr. Jones and his assistant, Owen Shroyer, then suggested to Infowars that Mr. Heslin was lying.
Mr. Heslin testified first on Tuesday. Soft-spoken and pausing often to cry, he describes his son as an energetic boy with a booming voice who likes to team up with his father to collect scrap and recyclables, which he returns for spending money. When the shooter entered Jesse’s classroom, he yelled “Run!” during a break in filming. Nine children escaped and survived.
Mr Heslin said conspiracy theorists tried to contact him on the phone, confronted him and pushed him into the street. Someone fired a gun into his house and car. This spring, he said, someone drove by his house and called out “Alex Jones!” and he heard the sound of gunfire.
Looking at Mr Jones’ empty seat at the defense table, Mr Heslin called his absence a “cowardly act”.
“The statements and remarks made by Infowars and Alex Jones have tarnished Jesse’s legacy,” he added.
While Mr. Heslin testified, Mr. Jones was across town broadcasting his show. After watching Mr Heslin’s courtroom testimony on YouTube, he called the grieving father “slow” and “manipulated by some very bad people”.
An hour later, Mr Jones appeared in court, flanked by his wife and a posse of bodyguards. Ms. Lewis, who had seen the broadcast defaming Mr. Heslin during the interruption of her testimony, was waiting for him.
“It was hard for me to find words today. It makes me feel amazed, in a bad way,” she told Mr Jones. “Horrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying.
Mr Jones testified after Ms Lewis, saying he had repeatedly tried to apologise.
Travis County District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble later admonished him for lying under oath in parts of his testimony. Mr Jones had told jurors he was “bankrupt”, although his bankruptcy application had not yet been decided and the families’ lawyers said it was a tactic to avoid pending trials. He also claims to have complied with court orders in defamation cases, when in fact his long-standing refusal to produce documents and testimony is what caused him to lose them.
“You are under oath.” That means things must really be true when you say them,” Judge Guerra Gamble told Mr Jones. He tried to interject, but she stopped him, “Don’t talk.”
After the judge left the courtroom, Mr. Jones approached Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis and shook their hands. Their lawyers kicked them out and Mr Jones flew into a rage, claiming the parents had been “controlled”.
Add Comment