Alex Jones WILL face second defamation battle against Sandy Hook victims’ families: Connecticut judge slaps down InfoWars host’s bid to transfer case to bankruptcy court
- A judge in Connecticut ruled on Monday that the plaintiffs in the latest Sandy Hook defamation suit against Alex Jones can continue their case
- Jones’ lawyers were seeking to transfer the case from Connecticut Superior Court to bankruptcy court
- That came after Jones was forced to pay nearly $50 million to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of a 6-year-old victim of the shooting
- In his next case, Jones will face off against eight Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent that he is accused of defaming
A federal bankruptcy judge on Monday cleared the way for a defamation lawsuit in Connecticut to proceed against InfoWars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
The case was filed by relatives of some victims of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
For years, Jones has falsely claimed that the nation´s deadliest school shooting – which killed 20 students and six educators – was a hoax.
Jones´ lawyer had sought to transfer the case to a federal bankruptcy court, rather than continue the case in Connecticut state court.
That move brought the first day of jury selection to a sudden halt earlier this month.
However, Monday’s ruling by Judge Julie Manning essentially allows the plaintiffs to continue the defamation lawsuit against just Jones as an individual, without Free Speech Systems, a company owned by Jones and a defendant in the Connecticut case.
Following the ruling, jury selection could resume as early as August 16.
‘The plaintiffs´ rights to have that process continue in the Connecticut Superior Court should not be disturbed,’ Manning wrote in the decision, adding that the plaintiffs´ claims for damages were ready for trial.
In this trial, Jones is set to do battle in court with the families of eight of the families of victims of the Sandy Hook massacre and an FBI agent, who Jones is also accused of defaming.
Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones rallies pro-Trump supporters, Nov. 5, 2020, in Phoenix
Judge Julie Manning ruled on Monday that the plaintiffs can continue the defamation lawsuit against just Jones as an individual after his company filed for bankruptcy
Chris Mattei, an attorney for the plaintiffs, praised the bankruptcy judge’s decision.
‘We’re grateful the bankruptcy court saw through Alex Jones’s brazen effort to block a jury from being empaneled and holding him accountable. We look forward to trial,’ he said in a written statement.
Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy in Texas about a week before Jones’ lawyer sought to have the Connecticut case transferred.
A Texas jury this month ordered Jones to pay $45.2 million in punitive damages to the parents of one of the children killed at Sandy Hook, in addition to another $4.1 million he must pay Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis for the suffering he put them through by claiming for years that the shooting was a hoax.
Heslin and Lewis’ 6-year-old son, Jesse, was shot dead by maniac gunman Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook in December 2012.
Earlier in August, a 12-person jury said Jones must pay the parents $4.1 million in compensatory damages for spreading conspiracy theories about the massacre
Just a few weeks after the verdict was laid down, Jones doubled-down on his allegations regarding mass shootings
He told his listeners on a livestream of his show: ‘I believe the deep state, they’d kill Biden, which we’re totally against happening, as a pretext to really try to trigger a civil war, and/or Trump.’
The conspiracy theorist continued: ‘They might actually kill both of them.’
A few days before that broadcast, Jones appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room.
On that broadcast, Jones said: ‘I’m worried that the Biden controllers, the third administration of Obama – I’m worried that Obama and his people may provocateur [sic] some type of big terror attack.’
He added: ‘They might launch a cyber attack and blame it on the Russians. They might start a major war.’
Jones’ lawyer Federico Andino Reynal asked jurors for the fine to be $270,000
Neil Heslin, father of 6-year-old Sandy Hook shooting victim Jesse Lewis, becomes emotional during his testimony during the trial for Alex Jones
Jesse Lewis’ mother, Scarlett Lewis, addresses the media following the verdict in Austin
Jones´ attorneys plan to appeal and try to lower the amount he will be forced to pay the plaintiffs. On Monday, Reuters reported that the host would likely end up paying a significantly reduced figure of around $1.5 million.
While a juror in the trial named only as Sharon described to the agency how the jury arrived at their figures: ‘We all believed that Neil and Scarlett were credible. There just weren’t tangible things behind their mental anguish, and we were asked to award between $1 and $150 million without any guidance.’
She added: ‘Nobody was super happy with it.’
Sharon earlier said that the jurors’ deliberations began with group debating over whether to award figures ranging between $500,000 to $200 million.
She said: ‘We saw those numbers on the board and someone said, ‘Well, I guess we’re never leaving this room,”
During the trial, Jones claimed that any figure larger than $2 million could ‘sink’ Free Speech Systems.
Despite the verdict, on August 14, Business Insider reported that still one in five Americans believe that mass shootings are staged.
On Monday, it was reported that Jones had transferred the ownership of his $3 million home in Austin to his wife, Erika Wulff Jones, according to the New York Post.
Meanwhile, besides the case in Connecticut, a trial for damages is pending in Texas that was filed by the parents of another child killed at Sandy Hook.
Before the trial in Texas, Jones had already been found liable in a separate defamation lawsuit in Texas and another in Connecticut by relatives of some of the Sandy Hook victims.
The Connecticut jury will decide what, if any, damages Jones owes in that case, although state law could also limit what he would have to pay.
The two remaining trials are expected to begin next month, after juries are selected. Jury selection in the Connecticut case could resume this week, lawyers said.
EXCLUSIVE: Shamed Infowars host Alex Jones is still living the high life as he is seen smooching with his wife at pricey Omaha restaurant just a week after he was ordered to pay almost $50 million to the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim
Shamed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is still living the high life despite being ordered to pay out almost $50 million to families of the Sandy Hook shooting.
The Infowars host proved he isn’t ready to pare back his expensive tastes just because his company has filed for bankruptcy and he claims he is broke.
Jones, 48, spent the weekend in Omaha, Nebraska, hometown of his wife Erika Wulff Jones’s family.
Alex Jones held wife Erika Wulff Jones tight when they left the 801 Chophouse in Omaha, Nebraska for a cigarette break
Jones and his wife were visiting Omaha where her family is from
The couple married in 2017. Erika is Jones’s second wife and they have child. He has three children with his first wife Kelly
The couple stayed at the 1920s-built four-star Kimpton Cottonwood hotel, where they regularly spend time when in the area.
And he didn’t cut corners, using a driver to get around town and flashing a Rolex watch on his wrist.
‘When he’s here he always hires a driver and bodyguard. This time is no different,’ one source told DailyMail.com.
On Saturday he, his wife and four friends ate in the pricey 801 Chophouse restaurant downtown, where the least expensive steak on the menu – a single cut prime rib roast – costs $61 while a one-pound A5 Wagyu steak will set you back $560.
A meal there can easily come to $200 per person, not including wine or other alcohol. Scalloped potatoes go for $18 while baked cream spinach costs $15 and a basic wedge salad costs $17.
At one point Jones and Erika, 43, left the restaurant so he could have a cigarette. Casually dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, he appeared to be comforting his wife of five years, placing his left hand on her right shoulder. At one point he grasped her with both hands for a full body hug, lovingly putting his right hand behind her head, as he rested her head on his shoulder.
The loving scene was far removed from how the couple, who married in 2017, were acting around Christmas. She spent the holiday in jail after being arrested after she attacked him at their home in Austin.
The couple walked their dog on Sunday before visitng West Omaha and Fremont, Nebraska
Erika wore a t-shirt with the Ace of Spades on. That card represents intelligence according to cartomancers
Erika Wulff Jones emerged from a grocery store in Omaha clutching a bouquet of flowers on Sunday
They bought several bags of food from a grocery store
Alex Jones and his wife were seen relaxing in the hotel pool just a week after he was ordered to pay nearly $50milion tothe parents of a Sandy Hook school victim
He was later seen grinning and giving a thumbs up to the camera as his wife Erika Wulff Jones sat on his lap
The Cottonwood Hotel, which dates back to the 1920s describes itself as ‘genteel.’ Its website says: ‘We look to our rich heritage to inspire our fresh approach to modern hospitality with a hearty dose of Midwestern charm’
The menu at the 801 Chophouse boasts a $135, 30oz porterhouse steak, hash browns at $15 and an iceberg wedge salad at $17
‘I love my wife and care about her and it appears to be some kind of medication imbalance,’ Jones said at the time.
‘It’s a private family matter,’ he added.
But he told police he ‘feared for his life’ when she hit him more than 20 times with closed fists, an open hand and a soap bottle
He also claimed she had thrown a five-pound stone ball at his head, missing him by inches.
When he made a 911 call he told the dispatcher Erika had struck him over the head repeatedly and was ‘holding a polished club in her hand’ and attempting to ‘hit him with it.’
The battle was over her claims that he had cheated on her.
Erika Wulff Jones in her mugshot after she allegedly pummeled her husband last Christmas Eve
Not everyone in Nebraska’s largest city was pleased to see Jones. Mary LaVelle, who was visiting, confronted him. ‘He’s such a creature of bad things that I just saw him there and thought, ‘Well, I’m gonna interview him,” she told the Omaha World-Herald.
‘I did make mistakes and so I’ve owned up to that,’ Jones told LaVelle as she pretended to be a journalist.
He also told her he has the ‘right to question things if I want.’
When LaVelle saw one of Jones’s children running around in the hotel, she asked him if the child was a paid actor. He has claimed grieving Sandy Hook parents are really actors paid by anti-gun activists.
Another guest posted a picture of Jones in the hotel pool and then posing for a picture with his wife on his knee.
On Sunday Jones his wife and bodyguard went out for a morning walk around the neighbor at his mid-town hotel with their dog.
Jones once again dressed casually in a short sleeve blue button up shirt, jeans, tennis shoes, and sunglasses. Erika wore jeans, runners, sunglasses and had a on a t-shirt with a print of the Queen of Spades.
After taking their dog back up to their room Jones, his wife and bodyguard ate brunch at the hotel.
At 12:30 pm they all got into the SUV and drove to a local grocery store where they bought several bags of food, what looked like deli items, soups, pie, spreads and chips. Jones’s wife had a bouquet of flowers in her hand as she left the store.
From there they drove to an apartment complex in West Omaha and picked up a few people, he then jumped into a silver Toyota Camry with his wife and sped off to Fremont, Nebraska, 35 miles west of Omaha.
Jnes said his wife’s attack was caused by a ‘chemical imbalance’
Alex Jones reacts in an Austin courtroom after the jury decided how much he should pay for defaming the parents of a murdered Sandy Hook schoolboy
Jones claimed the trial was a way for others to attack his Freedom of Speech. He arrived at the Texas court on July 26 with a piece of tape over his mouth that read ‘Save the 1st’ Amendment
Jones still has more legal woes ahead. A similar defamation case in Connecticut is scheduled to start September 6. A jury has already found he is liable for defamation and the new trial is just to decide how much he has to pay in damages.
The broadcaster was found last year to have defamed Heslin and Lewis by spreading lies that they were part of a government plot to stage the elementary school shooting in Connecticut.
Jones was said to be worth $270 million during the Austin trial. Bernard Pettingill, an economist who was hired by the parents, told the court: ‘That number represents, in my opinion, a value of a net worth. He’s got money put in a bank account somewhere.’
Jones’s first wife, Kelly, the mother of his three older children, earlier this month called him ‘truly mentally ill’ for his insistence that the Sandy Hook attack was fake.
‘He should be protected from himself and others,’ she said during an interview with Inside Edition.
‘He doesn’t have any moral compass. He lives in his own universe, and he is a very — in my opinion — delusional man.’
Jones posted a video on Infowars saying he does not have the money to pay the full award. ‘We are so broke,’ he said before pleading with his followers to send him money.
‘If you don’t fund us… we will shut down,’ he said.
But that is not how employees at the Omaha hotel found him. ‘He was nice, gracious and a generous tipper. one told DailyMail.com.
‘He didn’t appear to be broke.’
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