Alex Jones seeks new trial after $1 billion Sandy Hook verdict

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has requested a Connecticut decide to difficulty a judgment of almost $1 billion in opposition to him and order a brand new trial in a lawsuit filed by the household of Sandy Hook, who say they’ve suffered harassment and intimidation from Jones’s lies concerning the 2012 Newtown Faculty capturing.

Jones filed the claims Friday, saying Decide Barbara Bellis’s pre-trial rulings resulted in an unfair trial and “a considerable lapse of justice.”

“As well as, the quantity of the damages award exceeds any affordable relationship to the proof introduced at trial,” Jones’ attorneys, Norm Pattis and Kevin Smith, wrote within the petition. .

Christopher Mattei, an legal professional for the 15 plaintiffs within the Jones case, declined to touch upon Saturday’s submitting, however mentioned he and different attorneys for the Sandy Hook household will file objections to Jones’ request.

Twenty first graders and 6 educators at Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty died within the December 14, 2012 assault.

An FBI agent who responded to the capturing and family of the eight youngsters and adults killed within the bloodbath sued Jones for defamation and psychological misery as a result of he made the assertion. a bogus story that the capturing was a hoax staged by “disaster actors” to impose extra weapons. management.

Six juries in Waterbury, Connecticut, ordered Jones and his firm, Free Speech Methods, on October 12 to pay $965 million in punitive damages to the plaintiffs and allege the fees Compensation also needs to be awarded. Bellis has scheduled a listening to early subsequent month to find out the quantity of damages.

In the course of the trial, the sufferer’s family mentioned in usually emotional testimony that that they had been threatened and harassed for years by individuals who believed the lies advised on Jones’ present. Strangers had been current on the households’ properties to document and confront them in public. Individuals throw abusive feedback on social media. Relations mentioned that they had obtained demise and rape threats.

The rulings come after one other jury in Texas in August ordered Jones and his firm to pay almost $50 million in punitive damages to the mother and father of one other Sandy Hook youngster who was injured. kill. A 3rd trial on hoax allegations, involving two Sandy Hook mother and father, is scheduled to be held later this yr in Texas.

Jones, who has admitted lately that the capturing occurred, has ignited lawsuits and trials on his Austin, Texas-based Infowars program, calling them unjust and violating violate his proper to free speech.

However he misplaced the correct to current these defenses when judges in Connecticut and Texas discovered he was answerable for damages by default with out trial, for what they referred to as the Jones affair. repeatedly did not ship a number of items of proof together with monetary paperwork and net evaluation to legal professional Sandy Hook .

With legal responsibility established, the trials in each states centered solely on the quantity Jones needed to pay damages.

Pattis, Jones’ legal professional, wrote in Friday’s submitting that there was an absence of proof of a direct hyperlink between Jones and people who harassed and threatened Sandy Hook’s household. Pattis mentioned the trial was like a “memorial, not a trial.”

“Sure, the households on this case have suffered horribly on account of killing their youngsters,” Pattis wrote, including that Jones didn’t ship individuals to harass and threaten the households. household.

“No authoritative proof has been introduced at this trial that he has ever finished,” he wrote. “As a substitute, there was a staggering abuse of a disciplinary violation and its transformation right into a sequence of half-truths that misled the jury and resulted in substantial injustice.”