Aug 5 (Reuters) – A jury in Austin, Texas, decided on Friday that American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay $45.2 million in damages to the parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre claims the shooting was a hoax, in addition to $4.1 million in compensatory damages. Read more
Here are some of the other legal challenges facing Jones and his company.
TEXAS, CONNECTICUT COURT CASES
Jones faces a separate damages lawsuit in the same court in Austin for defaming the family of another victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting. His lawyer said Friday that the case is on hold because of his company’s bankruptcy.
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Jones is due in court to decide damages in another case in Waterbury, Connecticut, after he was found liable in absentia for defaming the families of several Sandy Hook victims with falsehoods about the shooting that killed 20 children and six employees in Newtown, Connecticut.
Jones had called the shooting a hoax by the US government, staged using crisis actors to serve as a pretext to take away Americans’ guns. He has since admitted that the massacre was real.
The Connecticut trial, which had been set to begin in September, was postponed after Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems LLC, filed for bankruptcy last week. Jones said during a Monday broadcast of his Infowars program that the filing will help the company stay on the air while it appeals.
TEXAS BANKRUPTCY
In the bankruptcy case, Sandy Hook’s parents told a Houston judge this week that Jones could continue to take money from Free Speech Systems, the parent company of his far-right website Infowars, while using his bankruptcy case to avoid paying judgments in defamation cases.
The families said Jones took $62 million from Free Speech Systems while loading them with $65 million in “fictitious” debt to PQPR Holdings, a company owned by Jones and his parents. They asked the bankruptcy court to prevent Free Speech Systems from sending money to Jones or his companies until they had a chance to get to the bottom of Infowars’ finances.
POSSIBLE CHARGES OF PERJURY
A lawyer for the plaintiffs in the Texas trial on Wednesday revealed that Federico Andino Reynal, Jones’ attorney, inadvertently sent him a file containing two years of Jones’ text messages, along with trial strategy notes and medical records.
Jones claims he searched his phone for messages about Sandy Hook and never found any. He denied on the stand that he lied, but the revelation raised the possibility that Jones could be charged with perjury, a felony.
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble on Tuesday chided Jones for not being truthful during his testimony when he said he was bankrupt and complied with plaintiffs’ requests for pretrial information.
Texas defense attorneys said perjury prosecutions are rare, especially for conduct in a civil case.
ATTORNEY CONSEQUENCES
The judge in the Connecticut case on Thursday ordered Reynal and another attorney for Jones to appear at hearings this month on whether they should face sanctions for unauthorized disclosure of the plaintiffs’ medical information, apparently in connection with the release of Jones’ records in Texas. Reynal did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.
ATTACK ON THE US CAPITOL
The revelation could also have implications for the US House of Representatives committee’s investigation into the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump. Mark Bankston, a lawyer for the parents in the Texas defamation case, said in court Thursday that the commission had asked him to turn over the text recordings it had obtained.
Jones marched with supporters to the Capitol on the day of the riot, but has not been charged with any criminal acts in connection with it.
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Reporting by Jack Quinn and Dietrich Knauth in New York; Editing by Will Dunham, David Barrio and Leslie Adler
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