Alex Jones’ cellphone records include ‘intimate messages with Roger Stone,’ Sandy Hook attorney says

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

AUSTIN, Texas — The attorney for a Sandy Hook family says the U.S. House Jan. 6 committee has requested a copy of Alex Jones’ cellphone records that the Infowars owner’s lawyer mistakenly gave to the attorney.

Attorney Mark Bankston told a Texas judge during a hearing on Thursday morning that the records include “intimate messages with Roger Stone,” an ally of former President Donald Trump who was subpoenaed by the House committee alongside Jones last year.

The data also includes mental health records for the plaintiffs in similar Connecticut defamation lawsuits filed against Jones that will go to trial. His Connecticut attorney Norm Pattis and his Austin attorney Andino Reynal, who it appears inadvertently released the records, are now required to appear before a Connecticut judge in the next few weeks to discuss possible discipline, court records show.

Stone, who was born in Norwalk and was a longtime informal adviser to Trump, was indicted by federal authorities on charges of lying and witness tampering in connection with the release of Democrats' hacked emails in 2016. Trump later commuted Stone’s sentence and granted him a pardon, according to the Associated Press.

The messages between Jones and Stone were of a personal nature “unrelated to matters of public importance” and won’t be revealed, Bankston said. “I’m not going to smear him (Jones) with his private life,” Bankston said during a brief press conference Thursday afternoon.

Otherwise Bankston is willing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee by providing whatever information from the data they request, he said. “I don’t even know if it covers the time period they are interested in, or what time period they are interested in,” said Bankston who determined that the records include Jones’ text messages dating back to 2019.

The messages show that Jones lied during testimony, Bankston said. “We already proved Mr. Jones lied about it,” Bankston said. “I’ve never seen a moment like that in a courtroom, I never thought I would have a moment like that in a courtroom.”

Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, meanwhile, refused to call for a mistrial in the Sandy Hook defamation awards trial after Jones’ attorney filed a protective order Thursday morning seeking to bar the parents that his client defamed from using the emails and text messages in the punitive damages portion of the proceedings.

Reynal, representing Jones, asked for a mistrial while seeking the order, after it was revealed during Wednesday’s testimony that he seemed to have inadvertently sent attorneys for Sandy Hook parents Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin volumes of information including texts and emails from his client to others, including Donald Trump ally Roger Stone.

Reynal contended that he had asked Bankston, representing Lewis and Heslin, to disregard the link to the information. “I told him that it was sent in error and to please disregard the link, I’m working on sending a new one,” Reynal told Gamble.

But Bankston told the judge that he didn’t have to since Reynal never formally specified what privileged or confidential information should be removed under a court rule that allows him to keep the data after a 10-day grace period. If Reynal wanted the information kept sealed, he would have had to state what portions were confidential or privileged materials within the 10-day period, Bankston said.

“None of that has happened,” Bankston told the court.

“We have Mr. Reynal asking to seal things up that should have been produced a minimum of six months ago,” Bankston said.

The information includes psychiatric records for other Sandy Hook families who are suing Jones in Connecticut court on similar defamation grounds, Bankston said. He said he “immediately destroyed” those confidential medical records. It was apparent from the documents that Pattis, representing Jones in the Connecticut case, sent Reynal the mental health records for the Texas case, Bankston said.

“Norm Pattis was passing them along to Mr. Reynal, and that is also independently very troubling,” Bankston said.

A Connecticut judge has determined that Reynal may sit at the defense table in the Connecticut case, but may not actively try the case.

“We shared information with lawyers working on the defense of Mr. Jones,” Pattis said by text message Thursday afternoon. “I disagree that this was inappropriate.”

He declined to comment further on the Connecticut judge’s order to appear at a 2 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 10 hearing to consider “whether he should be referred to disciplinary authorities or sanctioned by the court directly” over the “purported release of medical records of the plaintiffs, in violation of state and federal statute and this court's protective order, to unauthorized individuals.”

The case Pattis is litigating on behalf of Alex Jones is stalled as his client filed for bankruptcy on the eve of a trial in Connecticut, where jury selection started and then stopped on Tuesday.

”While these three consolidated lawsuits between the parties are presently pending in the bankruptcy courts, this disciplinary matter is directed to counsel and not the parties, such that the court has jurisdiction to address the disciplinary issues,” Connecticut Judge Barbara Bellis wrote in her order.

Reynal must appear at a 10 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 17 hearing.

The texts and emails showed Jones had been communicating with others about Sandy Hook in recent years, Bankston said. Jones had said on the stand this week that he searched his phone and didn’t have any communications on Sandy Hook.

“Twelve days ago, your attorneys messed up and sent me a digital copy of every text,” Bankston said to Jones while he was on the stand. “Do you know what perjury is?”

Among the messages that Bankston showed to Jones and the jury were text messages between Jones and Infowars employees discussing the company’s finances. Another message included a warning from one of Jones’ producers that the site’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic contained falsehoods that were reminiscent of debunked theories Jones had spread about Sandy Hook.

The financial information culled from the data will be presented during the second phase of the trial to determine punitive damages, Bankston said.

“There will be more witnesses about what Mr. Jones net worth is and they (the jury) are going to have to decide a second number and that number is going to be what’s necessary to both punish Mr. Jones and deter others from doing what he did,” Bankston said.

Gamble asked Reynal to review the contents of the information that was mistakenly sent to Bankston to determine what should be considered confidential or privileged.

The hearing on the texts and emails was held as the jury is deliberating how much in compensation Heslin and Lewis should receive for intentional infliction of mental anguish by Jones who repeatedly called the death of their son a “hoax” committed by “crisis actors.”

Staff writers Jordan Nathaniel Fenster and John Moritz contributed to this story.