Newtown families: Alex Jones fails to show up for deposition
HARTFORD, CONN >> Infowars host Alex Jones failed to show up and testify under oath at a deposition Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, leading the families' lawyer to call for Jones' arrest if he doesn't appear again today.
Jones, whose attorney said he missed the deposition because of an appointment for undisclosed medical conditions, was scheduled to testify Wednesday and today in Austin, Texas, where Infowars is based, in connection with the relatives' defamation lawsuit against him for saying the 2012 school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax.
Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis found Jones liable for damages in November. A trial on how much he should pay the families is set to begin in August.
Bellis on Wednesday ordered Jones to appear at the deposition today and warned he would be in contempt of her order if he doesn't show. She denied a request by the families' lawyer, Christopher Mattei, to issue an arrest order to have Jones brought to the proceeding if he fails to attend again but said Mattei could seek to subpoena Jones and request sanctions against him.
“This, in our view, was a cowardly display intended to cheat the plaintiffs of their right to put him under oath,” Mattei said at a news conference, “and ask him questions about why over the course of many years he lied about them, he lied about the loved ones that they lost at Sandy Hook and why he unleashed a barrage of harassment over many years that continues to this day.”
Jones' lawyer, Norman Pattis, filed new court documents late Wednesday afternoon that included letters from two doctors who said they advised Jones not to attend the deposition because of his medical conditions.