His victims were the families of little children slaughtered in their classroom by a deranged young man with an AR-15 rifle.
Alex Jones profiteered from their murders by calling the too-real school shooting a “hoax” and their grief-stricken families “crisis actors.”
The injury to them was more than emotional. They endured years of threats and harassment from people who believed his lies. “Strangers showed up at the families’ homes to record them and confronted them in public. People hurled abusive comments on social media. Relatives said they received death and rape threats,” the Guardian says (here).
They sued him. The first lawsuit, in Texas, resulted in a jury verdict of $50 million. In a Connecticut lawsuit, Jones refused to comply with discovery, mocked the judge, and called the families’ lawyer an “ambulance chaser.”
The judge sanctioned him for the discovery violations by directing a verdict in favor of the families, leaving the jury only with the task of determining damages. They awarded the families $965 million, with punitive damages yet to be determined.
Now Jones wants a new trial. His lawyer is calling the directed verdict a “shocking abuse of a disciplinary default.” This on behalf of a client who thought he could get away with giving the middle finger to the legal system. Judges have tools for dealing with refractory parties, and a default verdict is one of them.
What do you think the chances are that appellate judges will conclude the legal system abused Jones, and not the other way around? I wouldn’t bet on his chances of getting this verdict overturned. And even if he does, there’s Texas verdict against him, with a third lawsuit pending in Texas.
This case reminds me a little of the lawsuit that bankrupted Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations (details here). The victims enforced their judgment by taking over Butler’s compound, razing the buildings, and converting the acreage into a peace park. I can foresee Jones’ business interests, including Infowars, ending up under new management. That won’t shut him up, but it’ll take away his microphone. And that would be a very good thing.
