A jury in Wisconsin has awarded $450,000 to the father of a boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting after he filed a defamation lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writers who claimed the massacre never happened. A Dane County jury on Tuesday decided the amount James Fetzer must pay Leonard Pozner, whose 6-year-old son Noah was among the 26 victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012.
Fetzer, a retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor now living in Wisconsin, and Mike Palacek co-wrote a book, "Nobody Died at Sandy Hook" in which they claimed the Sandy Hook shooting never took place but was instead an event staged by the federal government as part of an Obama administration effort to enact tighter gun restrictions. A judge earlier ruled Pozner was defamed by statements in the book that claimed he fabricated copies of his son's death certificate.
Fetzer called the damages amount "absurd" and said he would appeal.
Palacek reached a settlement with Pozner last month, terms of which were not disclosed.
"It causes people to believe that I lied about my son's death, that my son didn't die and that I'm somehow doing that for some other reasons," Pozner said, CBS affiliate WISC-TV reported.
"Mr. Fetzer has the right to believe that Sandy Hook never happened," he said. "He has the right to express his ignorance. This award, however, further illustrates the difference between the right of people like Mr. Fetzer to be wrong and the right of victims like myself and my child to be free from defamation, free from harassment and free from the intentional infliction of terror."
Pozner testified during the trial that he's been repeatedly harassed by people who don't believe the Sandy Hook shooting occurred, including through messages posted to photos of his son on a memorial website. He said Fetzer's writing caused him to worry about his safety and his family's safety and how his surviving children could be treated. One of his two daughters is Noah's twin.
Earlier this year the publisher of the book apologized to Pozner.
luleigas on October 16th, 2019 at 15:01 UTC »
In the book, the author claimed that the victim's dad fabricated copies of his son's death certificate. As a result, the victim's dad has been repeatedly harassed by people who don't believe the Sandy Hook shooting occurred, including through messages posted to photos of his son on a memorial website.
Shiver999 on October 16th, 2019 at 15:01 UTC »
Check out the publisher of this book, Moon Rock Books. There is some equally messed up shit that they have published about the Parkland shootings.
Claspedtangent03 on October 16th, 2019 at 14:35 UTC »
Pathetic that it had to get to this point. Funny how the more 0's rack up on those lawsuit claims, the more deniers are backing up scared trying to come up with excuses of why they said the shit. I thought they all had incontrovertible proof it was all fake? Maybe they left it behind on the spaceship?