The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
CT judge to sanction Alex Jones again
Jurist says media figure’s lawyers in Sandy Hook case violated a court order
NEWTOWN — A Connecticut judge promised to sanction Alex Jones on Wednesday after his lawyers were accused of violating a court order of protection and making information public from a confidential deposition of a woman who lost a loved one in the Sandy Hook massacre.
The promise by state Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis to sanction Jones for what would be second time came after a two-hour hearing about accusations by eight families in the lawsuit that Jones has withheld pretrial data, manipulated evidence, and violated the protection order by trying to subpoena Hillary Clinton.
“I do intend to impose sanctions,” Bellis said after questioning Jones’ attorney for using confidential testimony as the basis to subpoena Hillary Clinton about her alleged role “in a vendetta to silence Alex Jones.”
“I reject the argument made today by the defense counsel; I think the argument is baseless and the behavior was unconscionable,” Bellis said during a virtual hearing that was livestreamed on YouTube. “I am concerned about the chilling effect that this will have on the rest of the witnesses.”
Bellis stopped short of saying what sanctions she would impose, promising only to take the issue up in November along with other motions the families have asked the judge to consider, including entering a default judgment against Jones for his “disregard of the court’s authority.”
The judge’s ruling is the latest in a series of legal problems for Jones that have
been in the headlines all year, stemming from claims he broadcast on his Infowars channel that the massacre of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 was “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely fake with actors.”
Jones has since disavowed those claims, but his defense in five defamation cases in Texas and Connecticut brought by families who lost loved ones in the massacre has focused less on the argument that he is protected under the free speech provisions of the
First Amendment, and more on procedural battles with judges.
In Texas, for example, Jones got into such procedural trouble with the judge hearing three cases brought by parents of kids who died in the mass shooting that he lost the cases by default when the judge ruled he had shown “flagrant bad faith and callous disregard for the responsibilities of discovery under the rules.”
Those three cases now go to juries to award damages.
In Connecticut, Bellis has already sanctioned Jones once by denying him the chance to argue a line of defense he considers important after Jones went on his Infowars show in 2019 and threatened an attorney for the families with “blood on the streets.” Jones’ high profile defense attorney Norm Pattis lost an appeal in state Supreme Court and had his petition to U.S. Supreme Court refused.
On Wednesday, Bellis repeatedly asked Jones’ attorney Jay Wolman what was unclear in the protection order that made the defense team think it could share deposition testimony in a public way, as it did when it asked the judge to subpoena Clinton, a request the judge denied.
“It doesn’t seem complicated to me – it actually seems extremely basic – and I am very concerned that in the middle of the deposition, information from that deposition was used and a motion was filed with information from that deposition,” Bellis said. “Point me to the paragraph in the protection order that wasn’t clear to you.”
“It is unclear it applied to representations of an unnamed witness,” said Wolman.
“If it came from a transcript that was marked as confidential, then why isn’t that confidential?” Bellis asked.
“To the extent there was a violation, it was an unintentional violation,” Wolman said
“How was it unintentional specifically?” Bellis asked.
“Because the witness was not identified,” Wolman said.
At that point Bellis concluded her questioning and said that she would impose sanctions in November, adding she would consider other sanctions – including requests by the families to default Jones.
“I am very concerned that because the defense in this case expressed confusion over a very clear protection order, there are going to be problems in the future,” the judge said.