The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Sandy Hook victim’s father sues two more conspiracy theorists
The father of a boy slain in the Sandy Hook shootings who is suing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has taken two more extremists to court on defamation charges.
The father, Leonard Pozner, whose son Noah was among the 26 firstgraders and educators killed by a gunman at Sandy Hook School, is suing James Fetzer and Mike Palecek, co-editors of “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook,” on defamation and conspiracy charges.
Fetzer and Palecek claim, among other things, that Pozner forged his son’s death certificate to advance the hoax.
“(The) defendants acted together, as a cabal, to accomplish their defamation,” reads an 11-page complaint, filed Nov. 27 in Wisconsin Circuit Court. “(The) defendants’ defamatory publications were designed to harm (Pozner’s) reputation and subject (him) to public contempt, disgrace, ridicule or attack.”
The lawsuit — the latest in a string of defamation cases filed by Sandy Hook families against conspiracy extremists — does not name the amount of money it is seeking in damages.
Fetzer, reached at his home in Oregon, Wis., on Tuesday, said he stood by his belief that the Sandy Hook shootings were a hoax.
“This lawsuit being brought is completely without foundation and merit,” Fetzer said. “We are going to vigorously defend the lawsuit and expose the Sandy Hook massacre and the man Leonard Pozner is pretending to be.”
In April, Pozner filed a defamation lawsuit against Texas-based conspiracy extremist Alex Jones. Pozner filed the $1 million lawsuit with Noah Pozner’s mother, Veronique De La Rosa, and another parent of a Sandy Hook student who was killed, Neil Hesslin.
In May, six more Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent filed defamation lawsuits against Jones and his Infowars broadcast program.
Jones, who had claimed the worst crime in modern Connecticut history was a hoax, said in his defense in court earlier this year that he now believes the shootings happened, and he has a right to be wrong.
Pozner and De La Rosa, made headlines in July after they published a critical letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg accusing him of providing conspiracy extremists such as Jones with “a safe haven for hate.”
Facebook responded along with YouTube, Apple and other social media companies with suspensions and restrictions on Jones and his Infowars sites, citing him for inciting violence and promoting hate speech.
Pozner’s suit against Fetzer and Palecek accuses the two of endangering his life.
In 2016, the lawsuit notes, a Florida resident named Lucy Richards who visited websites maintained by Fetzer, threatened to kill Posner in an online message.
At Richard’s sentencing, U.S. District Judge James Cohn said, “There are no alternative facts,” the lawsuit says.