The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Sandy Hook father vows to ‘fight’ Alex Jones at trial
NEWTOWN — A Sandy Hook dad whose son was killed in the 2012 school shooting said he will reject a $120,000 offer by Alex Jones to settle defamation damages in order to “fight him” at a trial planned next month in Texas.
“With me it was never about money — it was about principle,” said Neil Heslin, whose son Jesse was among the 20 firstgraders and six educators slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “I’m not surprised Jones would try to settle before this goes to trial, but I am going to trial to fight him. I am going to argue the whole thing.”
Heslin’s vow on Wednesday comes one day after Jones offered an FBI agent and 18 members of 10 families who lost loved ones in the school shooting $120,000 each to settle defamation lawsuits he lost against them in Texas and Connecticut late last year.
In Connecticut, the FBI agent and 14 people from eight families rejected Jones’ offer, calling it “a transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs.”
Heslin, who won a defamation case against Jones in Texas, has yet to formally respond in court to reject Jones’ offer, he said.
In Texas, where Jones made settlement offers to Heslin and three other parents of two slain first-graders, the first of two trials to determine damages is scheduled to begin at the end of April.
The lead attorney representing Heslin and the other three Sandy Hook parents in Texas would only say Jones’ offer to his clients was the same as the offer to the families in Connecticut.
Jones, the host of the “Infowars” internet program, called the Sandy Hook tragedy “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely fake with actors.”
His settlement offer came with his “heartfelt apology for any distress his remarks caused.”
“His apology doesn’t matter to me,” Heslin said on Wednesday.
Jones’ New Haven attorney Norm Pattis called the rejection of the settlement offer by the families in the Connecticut case Tuesday night “another ridiculous public relations stunt.”
The families’ rejection of Jones’ settlement offer comes one day before both sides were due in Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis’ courtroom to resolve the issue of Jones failing to appear for two days of depositions last week, in defiance of a court order.
She ordered Wednesday that he must pay an escalating daily fine of $25,000 that would begin Friday and end only after Jones completes a full day’s deposition.
The families had called for Jones’ arrest until he complies with the deposition order.
Jones said he has cardiovascular symptoms related to his COVID-19 infection last year, as well as “a lot of stress” that has caused doctors to advise him against a lengthy session of questioning under oath.
Both sides are preparing for a trial in August to determine damages after Jones lost his defamation case in November by default.
The defamation cases are not to be confused with another high-profile lawsuit against the defunct gunmaker Remington, which was settled for $73 million in February, although some of the same families involved in the Jones defamation cases were involved in the Remington lawsuit, and the same Connecticut law firm involved in the Jones defamation case in Connecticut was involved in the Remington lawsuit.
On Tuesday a federal bankruptcy judge in Alabama, who approved the sell-off of Remington to competitors in 2021, formally approved the offer by the former gunmaker’s four insurance companies to settle a wrongful death lawsuit with nine Sandy Hook families. The families argued that Remington recklessly marketed the AR-15style rifle used by the gunman in the Sandy Hook shooting.