Jones custody case goes to jury

Ex-spouses hurl charges of brainwashing, instability at each other.

The Travis County jury in the Alex Jones-Kelly Jones child custody trial began deliberations at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, but hadn’t reached a verdict by press time. Ten of the 12 jurors must agree to return a judgment.

At stake is whether the three Jones’ children, ages 9, 12 and 14, will continue to live with Alex Jones, the provocative broadcaster whose Infowars show has made him currently the most influential conspiracy theorist, or live instead with his ex-wife, who described him on the stand as a “violent, cruel and abusive man” who is “enraged and out of control most of the time.”

In his closing argument Thursday, Kelly Jones’ attorney Robert Hoffman argued that she was the victim of parental alienation with Alex Jones brainwashing their children to align with him and turn against her.

“Mr. Jones is like a cult leader; the children appear to be cult followers, doing what Daddy wants them to do,” said Hoffman.

“Nobody knows how to stop this man,” Hoffman told the jury, and that, he said, included Judge Orlinda Naranjo, who throughout the trial repeatedly told Alex Jones to stop making faces and nodding and shaking his head in reaction to testimony.

“Nobody can stop this man except the 12 of you,” Hoffman said. “You have an unbelievable amount of power.”

But Alex Jones’ lawyers depicted Kelly Jones as emotionally unstable, self-absorbed and paranoid.

Randall Wilhite, representing Alex Jones, said Kelly Jones came to view a legion of mental health professionals in the case — and even her former attorney — as “conspiring against her.”

David Minton, another of Alex Jones’ lawyers, said Kelly Jones’ mantra was “they all got it wrong.”

“They didn’t all get it wrong,” Minton said in his closing. “They are not all bought and paid for. They are not corrupt.”

But as he finished, Minton struck