Alex Jones was sentenced to pay more than $ 1 million for negligence in a lawsuit related to multiple defamation lawsuits against him.
In a court hearing Friday, Judge Maia Guerra Gamble ordered Jones and his company Free Speech Systems, LLC to pay a total of $ 1,078,653 to several individuals who sued Jones for a lie he committed. releasing about them on his conspiracy platform on Infowars. He has 30 days to pay more than $ 1 million to various parties, according to the statement.
Jones will have to pay all legal fees and other costs to the two pairs of Sandy Hook’s parents, who won a lawsuit against him last year after Jones failed to regularly provide discovery documents and appeared in the filings. Parents who lost their children in a school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 faced death threats after Jones falsely claimed and relentlessly declared himself “actors in crisis.”
The maximum amount entrusted to him – more than $ 730,000 – will be divided among the four plaintiffs in Sandy Hook. The plaintiffs are Texas law firm Farrar & Ball, not to be confused with another Sandy Hook lawsuit that Jones lost to Connecticut law firm Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder.
Jones was also ordered to pay an additional separate amount to the plaintiffs, ranging from $ 6,000 to more than $ 100,000 to cover legal fees and costs.
Although Jones has already lost the lawsuit against the Sandy Hook families, he will still have to sit in court in Texas next week until a jury decides how much the two plaintiffs will ultimately pay for his lies.
“The heinous and repetitive nature of the interception of the accused shows contempt and disrespect to the integrity of this court and of our judiciary.”
– Expensive. Maya Guerra Gamble sued Alex Jones
Not all. Infowars and Jones’ LLC will also have to pay more than $ 100,000 in legal fees and attorney’s fees for Marcel Fontaine, who was falsely accused by an Edowars editor of shooting at a Parkland school in 2018 that killed 17 people of Florida.
Publisher Keith Daniels, who is also charged in the lawsuit, cried during the deposit when he learned of the damage he did to Fontaine, HuffPost reports for the first time.
Part of the payment to Fontaine includes more than $ 18,000 for falsification of evidence after Jones’ attorneys tried to hide the documents from the court.
Gamble slammed Infowars and Jones’ LLC in an earlier statement announcing the sanctions earlier this month.
“The court found that the defendants deliberately stopped the legitimate discovery process in these cases,” Gambl’s judgment said. “The defendant’s countless and repeated interceptions of the defendant prove the contempt and disrespect for the integrity of this court and our judicial system. The discovery of the facts necessary for the plaintiff to properly file a claim is irreversible in almost every aspect. In the absence of strict action by this court, defendants will ultimately benefit from this sabotage of the discovery process. “
In 2020, Jones received a similar fine for failing to document documents related to Sandy Hook’s lawsuit and had to pay $ 100,000.
Apparently the lesson was not learned. Despite the failure of the defamation case papers against him, Jones did not appear for a deposition in Texas in connection with the Sandy Hook case. He was eventually fined $ 75,000, then the money returned when he finally showed up.
He continues to avoid responsibility. On Sunday, just a week before trial in the Sandy Hook case, Jones filed for bankruptcy in Chapter 11, the latest possible attempt to overturn his next sentence. Sandy Hook’s parents filed a petition under the Texas Uniform Fraud Transfer Act earlier this month accusing Jones and Infovars of “conspiracy.”[ing] His assets are redirected to insider-owned companies such as his parents, children and himself. Reported by the motherboard.
HuffPost was also the first to report on the Infowars store, which sold products worth more than $ 165 million from 2015 to 2018.
Remington Arms, the gun maker that sells firearms used to kill 20 children and six adults in Sandy Hook, also filed bankruptcy in Chapter 11. At the time, Sandy Hooke’s families, who sued the blacksmith, accused Remington of using bankruptcy to avoid liability. Earlier this year, Remington lost the case and ordered the families to pay $ 73 million.
Attorney Mark Bankston, who represents Sandy Hooke and the plaintiffs in Parkland, said his clients look forward to Jones’ trial.
“Our clients are pleased that Mr. Jones’s illegal attempts to sabotage these lawsuits have resulted in a decisive response,” Bankston said in a statement. “Our clients are now looking forward to the jury in their story.
An attorney representing Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source: Huffpost
