HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has rebelled, calling freedom of speech during a statement in April, as part of a lawsuit by relatives of some Sandy Hook Elementary School victims who are suing Jones for calling the massacre a hoax, according to court documents released Thursday.
Jones also insisted he was not responsible for the suffering Sandy Hook parents say they suffered because of the hoax conspiracy, including death threats and harassment from Jones’ followers, according to partial transcripts of the Bridgeport, Connecticut, April 5 deposition. and 6.
“No, I don’t accept responsibility because I wasn’t trying to cause pain and suffering,” Jones said, according to the transcripts. “And this is that they are being used and their children who cannot be returned are being used to destroy the First Amendment.”
Jones added: “If questioning public events and free speech is banned because it could hurt someone’s feelings, we’re not in America anymore. They can change the channel. They can come out and say I’m wrong. They have freedom of speech.”
After first promoting the hoax conspiracies on his Infowars show and other media platforms, Jones later said he believed the shooting happened, but claimed he had a right to say it didn’t.
A gunman killed 20 first-graders and six teachers at the school in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012. Families of eight victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school are suing Jones and his company Free Speech Systems for defamation of the hoax claims.
Connecticut Judge Barbara Bellis found Jones liable for damages to the families in November. Jury selection for a trial to determine how much money he should pay them will begin in Waterbury on Aug. 2.
Bellis came out in favor of the Sandy Hook families’ claims, defaulting Jones without trial on the liability issue, as punishment for what she called Jones’ repeated failures to follow court orders and hand over documents. Jones has criticized Bellis, denying that he did not hand over any documents to the Sandy Hook family’s lawyers.
A judge in Texas, where Jones and Infowars are based in Austin, issued similar standard rulings and found Jones liable for damages to Sandy Hook families who filed lawsuits in that state over the hoax conspiracy promoted by Jones. There are also lawsuits about compensation.
The partial transcripts were released ahead of a court hearing for Bellis on Thursday to prepare for trial. They were included in a motion by the families’ attorneys, Alinor Sterling and Christopher Mattei, asking the judge to prohibit Jones from challenging her liability finding against Jones at trial.
Questioned by Mattei during the impeachment, Jones called Bellis’ statement “fraudulent”, accused her of lying and claimed she was friends with a lawyer in Sterling and Mattei’s firm, Koskoff, Koskoff & Bidder.
“I’m sure your pet judge will do what you want,” Jones said.
Mattei asked Jones if he’d said the Sandy Hook shooting wasn’t real. Jones’ attorney, Norman Pattis, objected to the question. Jones then said, “It’s my right as a US citizen. … I said I could see in context how people would believe it’s completely staged and synthetic.”
Mattei later asked Jones if he viewed the Sandy Hook families as “ignorant pawns” in a plot against him.
“I’ve just seen a lot of sad people who lost their children and used me to keep their children’s story in the news and gun control in the news. And so … then I see the accusations from you that I made all this money off Sandy Hook when I know I didn’t.”
