Jones loses trust in lawyer for Sandy Hook cases
NEWTOWN — Alex Jones has lost enough confidence in highprofile New Haven attorney Norm Pattis that Pattis says he won’t be able to provide the best defense for Jones at a September Sandy Hook defamation awards trial without the help of a Texas lawyer Jones trusts.
“There has been some turbulence in my relationship with ( Jones) and there has been a rearrangement of counsel where … (Texas attorney Andino) Reynal is playing the role that I hitherto played,” Pattis told a Connecticut judge Thursday during a pretrial conference. “Given the intricacies of this case, we need (Reynal).”
State Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis declined to say on Thursday whether she would allow the Texas attorney to represent Jones at the Connecticut trial in September to determine how much Jones will have to pay an FBI agent and eight families Jones defamed by calling the 2012 massacre of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely fake with actors.”
The reason: the same Texas attorney is representing Jones in a jury trial starting July 25 in Austin to determine how much Jones will have to pay the parents of a boy slain in the Sandy Hook massacre who also won a defamation lawsuit against Jones last year.
That’s a problem, Bellis said, because she’s never allowed an out-of-state attorney permission to practice in Connecticut when the attorney couldn’t commit to being here for the entire trial.
“This is a sea change for me … but I am not averse to considering it,” said Bellis, noting that she would weigh the response from lawyers for the Sandy Hook families before she ruled next week.
Bellis and her Texas counterpart got into the showdown after Jones sought bankruptcy protection in April from four defamation cases he lost — two to Sandy Hook parents in Texas, one to Sandy Hook families in Connecticut, and the fourth to a Norwalk native Jones’ Infowars site defamed as a mass shooter.
When Jones’ bid for bankruptcy protection failed, the Texas judge rescheduled the three trials in Austin, two of which are now in conflict with Connecticut.
Thursday’s pretrial conference did not resolve the showdown with Texas, where the first defamation awards trial for two Sandy Hook parents is scheduled to be in its second week at the same time that jury selection begins in the Connecticut trial.
At stake is that Jones’ preferred Texas attorney won’t be able to be in two places at the same time.
Pattis, who asked Bellis in a motion earlier this week to reconsider her refusal to reschedule the Connecticut trial, said on Thursday he had no plans to argue that Jones would be deprived of his lawyer of choice should Bellis keep the Connecticut trial date as is.
Instead Pattis stressed that the best defense for Jones in Connecticut depended on the lawyer Jones trusts most being allowed in the Waterbury courtroom.
“(Reynal) is in a unique position of confidence with Mr. Jones, and given the strain in my relationship with ( Jones)…(Reynal) has more contacts and has access with stakeholders at a time when mine is strained,” Pattis said.
Pattis went on to explain that due to a second Texas defamation awards trial scheduled to begin in September, Reynal is likely to miss portions of the Connecticut trial once a jury is picked. That bothered Bellis.
“It’s one thing if (Reynal) isn’t present for jury selection but another thing entirely to have him not present for a part of the trial,” Bellis said. “Are there motions for (trial rescheduling) in Texas?”
No, responded Pattis.
That bothered Bellis enough to interrupt Pattis.
“Let me finish, please,” Pattis said.
“I will let you finish in a second,” Bellis said. “Why do I have a motion to (reschedule) here but there are no motions (to reschedule) in the other cases?”
Pattis said he wasn’t representing Jones in Texas, but would advise Jones’ legal team to ask the Texas judge to reschedule the second trial in September.
Thursday’s pretrial conference is the latest development in one of the highest-profile defamation cases of its kind in the country.
Earlier this week, Pattis asked Bellis to bar evidence to the jury in Connecticut about “white supremacy and right-wing extremism,” saying such associations would violate Jones’ right to a fair trial. In a separate motion Pattis asked Bellis for permission to introduce at the trial her decision that defaulted Jones last year and made Jones liable for defamation damages.
Lawyers for Sandy Hook families in Connecticut filed their own requests for trial parameters with Belllis on Thursday, asking her to bar Jones’ lawyers from introducing evidence at the trial about the $73 million Remington settlement with nine Sandy Hook families, and to bar Jones’ lawyers from challenging the “legitimacy and correctness of the default ruling” Bellis made against Jones.
“Alex Jones made it clear in his deposition that he views the default as ‘fraudulent’ and ‘ridiculous’ and the product of judicial bias,” reads a motion filed Thursday by Sandy Hook families’ attorneys. “( Jones is) not permitted to ignore or defy the court’s default rulings by suggesting to the jury that it should reject the default rulings.”