Jury hears testimony about Alex Jones and false Sandy Hook claims: Live Updates
No verdict yet in Sandy Hook defamation trial
Jurors weighing the cost of Infowars host Alex Jones’ lies about Sandy Hook school shooting deliberated Friday without reaching a verdict.
Jones has said the 2012 massacre was “synthetic as hell.” He also has accused relatives of victims of being crisis actors. In 2018, he was sued by a former FBI agent and families of eight victims. He was found liable for defamation last year. The trial is being held to determine how much he owes the plaintiffs in damages.
The jury submitted a couple of notes to the judge prior to the close of Friday’s trial day. They learned more about the name of the lawsuit as a result of one of the requests. They also asked to review video evidence presented in the trial but later withdrew the request.
Jurors began deliberating after closing arguments on Thursday. They’ll return Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. to continue.
Jurors weigh cost of Alex Jones' Sandy Hook lies
A Connecticut jury is deliberating on how much conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his company must pay victims’ families for calling the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School a hoax.
The three men and three women on the jury discussed the case for less than an hour Thursday after hearing closing arguments and returned Friday morning.
Jones last year was found liable for damages to the 15 plaintiffs who sued him for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and other claims.
Twenty children and six educators were killed in the shooting. Jones could be ordered to pay as little as $1 in damages or possibly tens or hundreds of millions, based on what the jury decides.
Jury begins deliberations in Alex Jones' Sandy Hook trial
A Connecticut jury is deliberating about how much Infowars host Alex Jones should pay plaintiffs for spreading lies about the 2012 Newtown school shooting.
Judge Barbara Bellis didn’t give jurors explicit instructions on how to arrive at dollar figures for the damages, but she reminded the jury of what they would be considering as they came to a verdict.
“The purpose of an award of damages is not to punish or penalize the defendants for their wrongdoing but to compensate the plaintiffs for their resulting harms and losses,” Bellis said.
She told them to use their life experiences and common sense in determining damages that are “fair, just and reasonable.”
The six-person jury, composed of three men and three women, began deliberations late in the day, charged with completing a form that will detail a dollar amount each of the 15 plaintiffs should receive.
In a similar trial in Texas in August, a jury ordered Jones to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the parents of one of the children killed in the shooting, because of the hoax lies. A third such trial, also in Texas, involving two other parents is expected to begin near the end of the year.
This story contains information from the Associated Press.
Defense attorney plays 19-minute clip from Infowars in closing arguments
Alex Jones declined to take the stand as a defense witness in his defamation trial in Waterbury. But on Thursday, he did get to address the jury, in a way.
Defense attorney Norm Pattis opened his arguments with a 19-minute video from a 2018 episode of Jones' Infowars show in which Jones accuses the media of misrepresenting his position for “questioning” Sandy Hook and bringing it up long after he acknowledged the shooting happened.
“It's edited and then it's brought back up as if I'm bringing it back up,” Jones says in the video.
But a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, Chris Mattei, said Jones lied on his show about the Newtown attack because it grew his audience and his profits.
“Will you render a verdict that finally forces Alex Jones to truly understand just how devastating his conduct has been?” Mattei asked.
Jones' attorney told the jury that his client didn't “invent the internet” and argued that jurors should not award excessive damages just because they are angry about the harassment the families went through.
Earlier, relatives of the school shooting victims testified that Jones’ followers threatened and harassed them for years because the talk show host kept trying to cast doubt on the shooting.
Jones has portrayed the families as part of a conspiracy to fake the shooting and take people’s guns. Some families' members described years of harassment — including threats of rape and death — as a result of Jones and the falsehoods spread on his show.
This story contains information from the Associated Press.
Closing arguments held in Alex Jones' Sandy Hook trial
A lawyer for families of eight people killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre told a six-person jury Thursday that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones started lying about the shooting the day it happened and provided the machinery that allowed that lie to spread.
After several days of testimony from plaintiffs recounting their experiences and the lives lost, their attorney Chris Mattei reminded the jury why they were so important.
"The families were drowning in grief and Alex Jones put his foot on them," Mattei said.
During the trial, plaintiffs have said the lies spread by Alex Jones have left them with numerous threats of death and rape. Family members of victims recounted other forms of harassment by conspiracy theorists, including being confronted in public and told they were “crisis actors.”
Alex Jones has already been found liable. In a similar trial earlier this year in Texas, a jury ordered him to pay nearly $50 million to the parents of a first grader killed at Sandy Hook.
“The lies that started on Dec. 14, 2012, are continuing to this very day,” Mattei said. “In two months it will be 10 years, 10 years since these families lost their loved ones and even now, even now, he's still doing it.”
The jury could begin deliberations by the day's end.
Attorneys in Sandy Hook defamation trial rest their case
In opening arguments weeks ago, attorneys for an FBI agent who responded to the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting and relatives of eight victims told jurors to “stop” Alex Jones.
As the plaintiffs rested their presentation of evidence Wednesday, attorneys made the argument that Jones still hasn’t stopped – and that he continues to be a provocateur in the face of four lawsuits related to false statements made about mass shootings.
The plaintiffs completed the presentation of their case Wednesday by showing Jones making a mockery of these proceedings on his show – proceedings that defense attorney Norm Pattis says his client is now boycotting.
“I apologize for nothing I’ve ever done,” Jones said recently in an Infowars clip shown to jurors.
Jones was found liable for defamation last year, meaning a trial could be held only to determine the level of damages owed to the plaintiffs.
Jones and people working under him at Infowars have told lies about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting since the day it happened, saying that it was staged and that families of victims were actually crisis actors.
While Jones in recent years has acknowledged that the shooting happened, he continues to lie about it.
“I think the public’s original instinct on it was right,” Jones recently said on Infowars in a clip shown to the jury Wednesday.
“It’s synthetic as hell,” Jones said.
The jury will deliberate on damages soon, as closing arguments in the case begin Thursday.
Alex Jones calls return to the stand a ‘trap’ as Sandy Hook defamation trial winds down
Alex Jones will not return to the witness stand in a trial to determine how much he owes an FBI agent and families of Sandy Hook victims for lying about the December 2012 shooting.
Judge Barbara Bellis addressed the Infowars host’s absence with the jury Wednesday morning, telling them “Mr. Jones has elected to not testify, which is his right.”
His attorney says Jones is “boycotting” the remainder of the trial. Jones showed up Tuesday but didn’t testify. Outside the courthouse, he told reporters he believed going back on the stand would be a “trap” and a “spider web.”
After Jones was called by the plaintiffs earlier in the trial, he said he’d testify next as a defense witness. Jones had said that would allow him to speak more freely on the stand.
Jones has already been found liable for defamation, meaning he’ll either pay “nominal” damages as requested by the defense or a larger figure yet to be determined.
In Connecticut, punitive damages are capped at attorney fees and expenses, but the plaintiffs say Jones’ profit from his Sandy Hook lies violates the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, which could mean he has to pay more.
The plaintiffs and the defense – without having called any witnesses – will conclude their presentation of evidence Wednesday.
The judge also told the jury to expect closing arguments Thursday.
Alex Jones will not return to the witness stand
Attorneys for Alex Jones said Tuesday afternoon that their client will not return to the witness stand to testify.
Jones was due to testify today, and then it appeared that testimony would take place tomorrow.
This afternoon, Jones’ attorney Norm Pattis,told the judge that Jones has elected not to testify.
Jurors hear more details about Alex Jones’ ambition and his profit off Sandy Hook lies
Attorneys for the plaintiffs played a clip featuring Timothy Fruge, Infowars’ former e-commerce director. Fruge confirmed for the plaintiffs that Jones saw “almost in real time” how products he was pitching to viewers for sale were performing and that “Alex [Jones] does his job on the show to sell products.”
After shows aired, Fruge said Jones would ask him about sales. He also said that Jones wanted to convert Infowars viewers into paying customers and that Jones would talk more often on his show about topics that drove sales spikes in the Infowars store in an attempt to make more money.
“Whatever you did worked, correct?” asked plaintiffs’ attorney Chris Mattei.
“Yes, that’s correct,” Fruge said in a previously taped deposition.
The plaintiffs' attorney also showed a 2018 Infowars broadcast in which Jones calls on his producers to “pull up Google Analytics” data which is then broadcast live on the show.
Fruge said he’d use Google Analytics when he informed Jones about sales.
Jones had claimed to plaintiffs’ attorneys and Judge Barbara Bellis that he didn’t have the Google Analytics data, but the defense eventually turned over that data to the families on the eve of the trial, well after Jones was found liable for defamation for his failure to produce documents for the plaintiffs.
‘That didn’t happen’: Sandy Hook mother meets conspiracy theorist in a grieving space
Francine Wheeler testified before jurors about a support group that she started going to a few years after her son Ben was killed at Sandy Hook.
She recalled meeting the mother of a 19-year-old who was killed in a robbery.
“That didn’t happen,” Wheeler said the mother told her in reference to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
It was testimony that prompted an audible gasp from Sandy Hook families sitting in the courtroom gallery.
“You’re lying,” Wheeler recalled being told.
These are experiences relatives of Sandy Hook victims have had in the 10 years since the Dec. 14, 2012, tragedy. The most prominent Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, began spreading lies about the shooting the day it happened.
Last week, Robbie Parker, father of Emilie Parker, recounted a similar experience before jurors. He recalled being harassed outside a hotel in Seattle and said he’d been recognized by someone who didn’t believe Emilie was killed in the shooting.
“How do you sleep at night you f****** piece of s***?” Parker recalled being told, delivering jarring testimony of an encounter with a conspiracy theorist.
Jones has already been found liable for defamation. Jurors will soon decide how much he owes families for his Sandy Hook lies.
‘They took my identity.’ Mother of Ben Wheeler says Alex Jones' Sandy Hook lies compounded her grief
Two months after Ben Wheeler was killed in the December 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, his brother Nate joined classmates from the school at the Super Bowl. They were part of a choir singing on the field as a tribute to the victims.
After the performance, a photo appeared online with words written on it saying: “10 Sandy Hook Children Found Alive And Well.” Conspiracy theorists incorrectly labeled one of those children as “Ben Wheeler.”
Francine Wheeler, mother of Ben and Nate, testified Tuesday at a trial to determine how much Infowars host Alex Jones owes Sandy Hook families for lies he told about the shooting. She said she started seeing lies spread about her son and other children in the choir shortly after they performed at the game.
“It is one thing to lose a child. There are thousands and thousands of parents who have lost children to guns, to cancer, to many, many things. And that’s hard enough because … if you are a grieving parent, you learn to live with that. It’s quite another thing when people take everything about your boy who is gone, and your surviving child, and your husband, and everything you ever did in your life that is on the internet and harass you,” Wheeler said on the stand Tuesday.
Nate Wheeler hid in a gym closet while his brother was killed on Dec. 14, 2012. Francine Wheeler said Nate heard everything. Yet at a friend’s house months after the shooting, he was shown comments on the Super Bowl video, which said the parents were actors and that Nate was a liar. Francine told the jury that conspiracy theorists also posted manipulated videos of her and her husband that were designed to mock the family. She said her son saw those videos online.
“They took my identity,” Francine Wheeler said. “They took my husband’s identity. They took my surviving child’s identity.”
Also on the stand, Wheeler said her children were best friends. She talked about Ben poking Nate’s eyelids to wake him up every morning. And about Ben’s love for lighthouses, which inspired a charity created after her son’s death called Ben’s Lighthouse.
It’s unclear if Jones will testify today
While Alex Jones is in Waterbury, whether he’ll take the stand today is in question.
Attorneys for both the plaintiffs and the defendant addressed the judge on the subject of whether Jones would be called as a defense witness Tuesday or Wednesday.
That hasn’t been sorted out yet, but testimony will continue. And the plaintiffs are still calling witnesses.
Francine Wheeler, whose son Ben was killed on Dec. 14, 2012, just took the stand. Francine and David Wheeler are among eight families of victims suing Jones for defamation in Connecticut.
Alex Jones is expected to testify this week as a defense witness
Infowars host Alex Jones is scheduled to return to a Waterbury courtroom this week, this time as a defense witness.
Jones’ appearance follows testimony last week from Robbie Parker, whose daughter, Emilie, was killed at Sandy Hook.
Just one day after Emilie was killed, Robbie Parker became a target of Infowars – and Jones himself mocked Parker for his demeanor when he spoke in front of cameras to memorialize his daughter. Parker said Jones’ statements led to threats from conspiracy theorists.
“It was almost like I knew when Alex Jones said something because we would get a huge wave of stuff,” Parker said.
In 2018, eight Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting sued Jones for defamation. Jones was found liable for defamation. A trial is being held to determine how much Jones owes the plaintiffs in damages for repeatedly lying about the shooting.
Jones last showed up in Waterbury on Sept. 23. But he left shortly after. His attorney Norm Pattis said he decided to question Jones as a defense witness rather than in a cross examination.
Earlier that week, Jones wouldn’t commit to never again referring to a mass shooting as a “false flag“ operation staged by the government. And when he was asked to address the families in court, he said he was done saying sorry.