Alex Jones Is Facing Two Lawsuits From Sandy Hook Families
Update: Alex Jones addressed two defamation lawsuits filed against him this week in a video posted on his YouTube channel, suggesting that the parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre victims took his words “out of context.”
The Infowars boss claims that “ten lawsuits have been filed against us by Democratic party-connected firms” in the last month. “My lawyers are very, very confident these are frivolous,” he added, “… and they will be dismissed.”
Jones also invited the aggrieved parents to visit his show “to have a real discussion about all this.”
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The families of two children murdered in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre filed defamation lawsuits against Alex Jones, the popular right-wing conspiracy peddler, in a Texas court on Monday, The New York Times reports.
On multiple occasions, Jones has claimed that the Sandy Hook attack did not actually happen, calling the massacre – which claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six teachers – a “giant hoax” and insisting that it was staged by professional actors.
“Our clients have been tormented for five years by Mr. Jones’ ghoulish accusations that they are actors who faked their children’s deaths as part of a fraud on the American people,” Mark Bankston, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Hollywood Reporter. “Enough is enough.”
Both lawsuits focus on statements that Jones made relatively recently, including a 2017 segment on his radio show entitled “Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed.” The New York Times reports that the lawsuits allege, “[Jones’] statements were a continuation and elaboration of a years-long campaign to falsely attack the honesty of the Sandy Hook parents, casting them as participants in a ghastly conspiracy and cover-up.”
In addition, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the suits allege that Jones’ statements “encouraged others to make death threats against the victims’ families.” A woman from Florida was sentenced to prison in 2017 for making death threats to one of the plaintiffs.
The lawsuits are seeking at least $1 million in damages.