Infamous radio host Alex Jones has been ordered by a judge to pay $100K for defamation to families of Sandy Hook shooting victims after making comments about them on his radio show.
A Texas judge has ordered Alex Jones and his Infowars hoax website to pay more than $100,000 in court costs and legal fees, marking the latest court victory for a Sandy Hook family suing Jones for his promotion of conspiracy theories about the 2012 elementary-school shooting.
Jones and Infowars are being sued by Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son was killed in the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting. On Dec. 20, Travis County Judge Scott Jenkins granted a motion for sanctions and legal expenses against Jones and Infowars, ordering them to pay $65,825 for ignoring a court order about providing documents and witnesses. In another ruling issued that same day in Heslin’s case, Jenkins denied an Infowars motion to dismiss the case and ordered Jones and Infowars to pay an additional $34,323.80, for a combined total of $100,148.80 levied against Jones and Infowars in a single day.
Added to an earlier October order against Infowars, Jones and his outlet have been ordered to pay $126,023.80 over the case, even before it reaches trial.
“It’s hardly a surprise that someone like Alex Jones would soon find himself in contempt of court, but now he is learning there are severe consequences to his utter disrespect for this process,” Mark Bankston, one of Heslin’s attorneys, said in an email to The Daily Beast.
Infowars and Jones didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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Jones and Infowars have also been accused of hampering discovery in Connecticut, where Jones is being sued by other Sandy Hook families. Infowars has repeatedly changed lawyers in those cases, prompting complaints from plaintiffs that the outlet is slowing down the legal process. And in an apparent act of incompetence, Jones’ legal team accidentally transmitted child pornography to the Connecticut plaintiffs during the discovery process, claiming later that the illegal images had been sent to Jones by anonymous trolls. (source)
Alex Jones has a lot of questionable things associated with him. His family has long ties to the CIA, which he has also mentioned himself. Likewise, Jones has been caught with sodomite transsexual pornography on his phone by way of a commercial that accidentally exposed it.
As I have noted before, Jones height of power seems to have peaked with a debate he did with David Duke on August 15th, 2015, and from that point seems to have continually declined in power and influence. His wife divorced him, his readership has declined, and thing just have not seemed to have become better for him.
This incident is the latest of a long string of events that turned the once very popular radio host into, as many have noted, a “magic pill” salesman pushing products such as “Brain Force” and “Male Vitality” pills.
Now Alex Jones has made many outlandish claims before, and certainly we don’t want to deny people of horrendous crimes their rightful public voice or truth, but the essence of what I want to note here is the intense nature of prosecuting Jones as well as others who have made questionable claims about the incidents at Sandy Hook, and the zeal in prosecuting them as well as what seems to be a strange silence about many legitimate questions asked by people concerning the incident. For example, while there has been thankfully more information released about the incident, one cannot help but note how quickly the investigation was concluded, how forceful the records about the case were sealed and how many remain sealed.
Sandy Hook was a tragedy that greatly affected the public. Lots of innocent people were killed. As such, is it not in the interest of the public to see a full disclosure as to the investigations that took place?
This is the central question, not asserting without clear evidence- which is what Jones seems to have done -a certain and controversial point that opened himself up to a legally precarious situation. This is not to defend Jones or inaccurate statements, but to note how there seems to still be a lot of questions about Sandy Hook as well as a lot of people who, well-meaning or not, are accepting the current conclusions without asking if there could be more than what is known, or asking deeper questions.
If the pursuit of the highest good is the truth, then without making false statements, it does require asking had questions at time. While one may never know the whole truth, it is always for the public good to see that the whole story comes out about whatever incident may be in question, for there is no way to dispel rumors, confirm facts, correct errors, and to provide healing, closure, and to build for a better tomorrow than to know the truth.
As such, there are many questions, and without making assumptions, it will be interesting to see if, and if so, what further information about this horrible incident comes out in the future.