Jones: ‘I believe Sandy Hook happened’
BRIDGEPORT — Alex Jones won’t be able to argue the merits of the defamation cases he lost to Sandy Hook families here and in Texas when juries decide damages in trials later this year.
But the embattled host of “Infowars” argued his defaulted cases to the media outside Joseph’s Steakhouse in downtown Bridgeport on Wednesday, after giving a second and final day of pretrial testimony ordered by a Connecticut judge.
“Most of the families didn’t sue me, and those that did I understand they had a lot of pain, but attacking me won’t bring their children back,” Jones said during interviews on Wednesday that he posted on his “Infowars” site. “And claiming that my free speech is hurting them and then misrepresenting what I said is not going to bring their children back.”
In separate three-minute interviews in which Jones did all the talking, he stressed three points — that the Sandy Hook defamation cases are a “pretext” for “war on the First Amendment” and the alternative media; that the mainstream media and the government conspire to stage events and lie about him; and that he apologizes for the mistakes that he makes — most notably about calling the 2012 killing of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely fake with actors.”
“I believe Sandy Hook happened. I’m sorry for the families,” Jones said. “But they’re being used in my view as pawns by powerful Democrat law firms that want to try to shut down ‘Infowars’ and Alex Jones. And once that domino falls, they’ll be able to shut down everybody.”
An FBI agent and eight families represented by Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder who won their defamation case against Jones in November released a statement Wednesday night after Jones completed his second and final day of questioning in preparation for a trial in August to award damages.
“Mr. Jones has now been deposed by attorneys representing the Sandy Hook families that he has so deeply and repeatedly harmed over the years,” said the families’ lead attorney, Chris Mattei. “We appreciate that the court took firm measures to compel this deposition, which likely would not have happened otherwise.”
Mattei was referring to escalating $25,000 daily fines imposed by state Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis last week after Jones skipped two court-ordered depositions dates in March, when he complained of “a lot of stress.”
The fines stopped when Jones flew to Connecticut this week and joined his New Haven attorney Norm Pattis at the depositions in Bridgeport. The only reference Jones made Wednesday about his health that caused him to skip the March depositions was that he had suffered from a “sinus infection … and vertigo.”
Jones’ First Amendment arguments will be off the table when jury trials begin here and in Texas, where judges defaulted him for procedural abuses. Only evidence related to damages will be argued.
Jones made headlines last week when he offered $120,000 each to the 15 people who won the defamation case against him in Connecticut and the four people who won the two defamation cases against him in Texas. The Connecticut families rejected the settlement offer. The Texas families are focusing on their trials, the first of which begins on April 25 in a Travis County courtroom.