Sandy Hook families reject Alex Jones settlement offer

Authored by apnews.com and submitted by MarvelsGrantMan136

FILE - This Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018, file photo shows radio show host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones at Capitol Hill in Washington. Infowars host Jones has offered to pay $120,000 per plaintiff to resolve a lawsuit by relatives of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims who said he defamed them by asserting the massacre never happened, according to court filings Tuesday, March 29, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Infowars host Alex Jones offered to pay $120,000 per plaintiff to resolve a lawsuit by relatives of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims who said he defamed them by asserting the massacre never happened, according to court filings Tuesday. The offer was quickly rejected by the families.

A Connecticut judge found Jones liable for damages in November, and a trial is planned to determine how much he should pay the families.

The plaintiffs said they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones’ followers because of the hoax conspiracy promoted on his show.

The court filings posted online said: “Mr. Jones extends his heartfelt apology for any distress his remarks caused.”

Last week Jones defied a court order to attend a deposition near his home in Austin, Texas, to provide testimony ahead of the trial. Jones said he was ill. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday on a request by the plaintiffs to sanction Jones for not cooperating .

Lawyers for the families rejected the settlement offer within a few hours, saying in court filings that it was a “transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs and the memory of their loved ones lost at Sandy Hook.”

Twenty first graders and six educators were killed in the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. The families of eight of the victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school sued Jones, Infowars and others in Connecticut over the hoax conspiracy. Jones has since said he believes the shooting did occur.

Jones also was found liable for damages in similar lawsuits filed in Texas by relatives of Sandy Hook victims, and also faces trial later this year.

locusness on March 30th, 2022 at 02:12 UTC »

Because people here might not have seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDMwG2QRvAw

That link is to a youtube channel that covers legal issues, usually copyright. It covers the recent Alex Jones case and how Alex Jones has been trying to avoid his deposition before the trial starts by offering a "doctors note".

Just to condense it down, he is claiming he is currently house bound at his doctors request, but during the trial portions where the judge is assessing the request to review the "doctors note" without revealing it to the plaintiffs, the plaintiffs lawyer revealed Jones was currently at that moment streaming his show from his studio, which is not his home.

The video goes into more depth on this but essentially claiming he can't attend the deposition because he is housebound while leaving his house to film his show at his studio.

Keep in mind all the plaintiffs had to suffer the indignity of the defense depositions already, that already happened and none of them tried to avoid it.

Then Jones turn came around and suddenly he had a medical condition that he doesn't want revealed, diagnosed by a doctor whom he doesn't want to reveal, licensed in a state that he doesn't want to reveal.

The judge decided to compel his deposition with daily fine of I think it was 5 or 20 k until it happens with the option to put out a warrant for his arrest if he doesn't comply eventually.

Meanwhile Jones has been asking his viewers for donations towards his legal costs, for a case he has been trying his hardest to run away from.

Just a monumental piece of shit.

Ar_Ciel on March 30th, 2022 at 01:55 UTC »

The court filings posted online said: “Mr. Jones extends his heartfelt apology for any distress his remarks caused.”

I'm sure that one guy who had to move like 7 times because of people stalking him takes heart in that apology.

PaddleMonkey on March 30th, 2022 at 01:54 UTC »

The families don’t care about the amount. They care more about public record, and that the trial will eventually and publicly make Jones even more humiliated and distrusted than ever, and straightening out the record of wrongs with the proper judicial process.

Settling with money will allow Jones to say he wasn’t guilty. We can’t have that.