Alex Jones faces daily fines until he appears for Sandy Hook deposition
Mar 30, 2022, 2:58 PM | Updated: Jun 13, 2022, 3:36 pm
Alex Jones of InfoWars talks to reporters outside a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing concerning foreign influence operations' use of social media platforms, on Capitol Hill, September 5, 2018 in Washington, DC. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg faced questions about how foreign operatives use their platforms in attempts to influence and manipulate public opinion. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut judge on Wednesday said Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones will be fined $25,000 to $50,000 per weekday until he appears for a deposition in a lawsuit brought by relatives of some victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Jones’ testimony is being sought ahead of a trial to determine how much he should pay in damages to the families for pushing a conspiracy theory that the massacre never happened.
Jones cited a health problem last week when he defied an order by Judge Barbara Bellis to attend a deposition. Bellis said there wasn’t enough evidence that Jones was too ill to attend and found him in contempt of court.
UPDATE: Sandy Hook relatives REJECT Jones settlement offer of $120k ea in CT, calling it "a transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs & the memory of their loved ones"
— Elizabeth Williamson (@NYTLiz) March 30, 2022
Bellis also ruled that the deposition will now be held at the office of the families’ lawyers in Bridgeport, Connecticut, instead of Texas, where Jones lives.
Jones’ lawyers said he only missed the depositions because of his doctors’ advice and had always planned on attending the proceeding. They said he would next be available for a deposition on April 11.
Twenty first-graders and six educators were killed in the December 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. The gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, killed his mother at their Newtown home before the shooting, and killed himself at the school as police arrived, officials said.
Alex Jones was in the middle of a four-hour broadcast as his lawyers told a judge he was too sick to sit for a court-ordered deposition in the Sandy Hook case https://t.co/PoaOzCAMFl
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 24, 2022
The families of eight of the victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school sued Jones, Infowars and others in Connecticut over the hoax conspiracy. Jones has since said he believes the shooting did occur.
The plaintiffs on Tuesday rejected an offer from Jones to settle with them for $120,000 each.
