Judge to decide if Alex Jones’ delays crossed the line

NEWTOWN — The conspiracy extremist accused of crossing the line by defaming grieving Sandy Hook families will find out Friday whether he has crossed the line with a judge.

Alex Jones, the frontman of the Texas-based internet show InfoWars, faces sanctions in Waterbury Superior Court for delays in turning over his business documents to Sandy Hook families suing him for defamation.

Judge Barbara Bellis already warned Jones earlier this month that if he didn’t honor a March 20 deadline to turn over marketing and business records to the Sandy Hook families, the judge could refuse to consider a motion by Jones to throw out the defamation suit.

Jones missed the March 20 deadline.

Now the families are urging the judge to deny Jones’ motion to dismiss.

“At this point the court must conclude that the Jones defendants have willfully disobeyed the court’s discovery orders,” write attorneys representing an FBI agent and seven families who lost loved ones in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre. “They have offered shifting rationales for their delay in production, misrepresented the status of compliance and refused to comply even after this court warned that non-compliance could result in sanctions.”

Jones’ attorney, New Haven-based Norman Pattis, did not return messages at his office Thursday seeking a comment.

Pattis filed a response with the judge Thursday that argued for more time, saying an employee of Jones “has spent many days searching through a database of 9.3 million emails to locate items responsive to the discovery requests.”

Pattis also argued against the most severe sanction – the judge denying Jones’ request to dismiss the suit.

“The claims raised by the (families) represent a clear and present danger to the nation’s long history of tolerance and respect for diverse voices,” Pattis wrote. “The (families) seek to trample the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression, to hold it, in effect, to the standards demanded by sympathetic censors.”

The defamation case – and a similar case brought against Jones in Texas by parents of two other victims of the Sandy Hook massacre – is shaping the national debate between free speech advocates who say extremist expression is protected under the First Amendment, and civil justice advocates who say there is a price to pay for recklessly abusing the truth.

The families argue that Jones’ business has profited by calling the worst crime in Connecticut history “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax” and “completely fake with actors,” with “inside job written all over it.”

Jones has argued in court papers that he no longer believes the massacre of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook School was a hoax — and that he has a right to be wrong.

Jones has also asked the judge to rule quickly to dismiss the families’ claim under a statute that tries to weed out frivolous defamation lawsuits.

Leslie Levin, a law professor at UConn, says the statute Jones is invoking is designed to stop lawsuits that are most often brought by corporations against everyday people, to silence their criticism.

“[The] statutes were meant to protect individuals from this type of abusive litigation,” Levin said. “Ironically, in the Jones case, it is media figures and corporations that are trying to use (it) against individuals.”

The judge could refuse to entertain Jones’ motion for a quick ruling as a result of his delays.

A legal observer said it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the judge do so.

“She certainly has the power to do it,” said David Schulz, a senior research scholar at Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic.

Pattis argued that Jones’ is shielded by journalistic privilege.

“(F)ree speech is always tested in the crucible of unpopular, even sometimes irresponsible speech,” Pattis wrote to the judge on Thursday. “These values ought not to be sacrificed for the sake of the tender sensibilities of the politically correct.”

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