Infowars founder Alex Jones has lost another legal battle against families who lost loved ones in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting.
Jones must now pay all costs associated with an appeal filed against a parent of a Sandy Hook Elementary School victim, says the Texas Court of Appeals.
Neil Heslin's six-year-old son Jesse Lewis was killed during the mass shooting in 2012. Heslin filed a motion of contempt against Jones when he refused to release internal Infowar documents and emails related to Sandy Hook. Heslin’s attorney Bill Ogden says the refusal brought the case to a standstill.
“As soon as he filed his notice of appeal the case stopped. We never got the discovery, we never got the answers to our questions for deposition, we never got any documents,” Ogden said. “They objected to everything and said the court doesn’t have this power.”
Lawyers for Jones did not immediately respond to requests for comment. His claims that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged led several families of Sandy Hook victims to file defamation lawsuits against Jones.
“We hope that the defense will stop trying to roadblock, just giving us the information and letting us get to the bottom of this,” Ogden said, “and getting this case closed, rather than trying to drag it out and making it as difficult as possible on these parents after what they’ve done to them.”
Jones currently has lawsuits filed against him by multiple families of Sandy Hook victims in Connecticut and Texas. Ogden, who represents Heslin with the Houston-based firm Farrar & Ball, said the costs of the appeal process could likely total thousands of dollars.
Based on some of the “sister suits” in progress in Connecticut filed by other victims’ families, Ogden anticipates “tens of thousands of documents” to be turned over in the discovery process if Jones complies. In the meantime, they plan to file a motion for sanctions against Jones for discovery abuse.
