Attorneys for Alex Jones take up after-trial battles in Conn., Texas
Attorneys for Alex Jones are taking up after-trial battles in Connecticut and Texas to limit his losses after total defamation awards to Sandy Hook families of $1.48 billion.
In Austin, Texas, the headquarters of Jones’ conspiracy news and merchandising platform Infowars, a daylong hearing was underway Tuesday about whether the state cap of $750,000 in punitive damages should apply to the $49 million a jury awarded the parents of a slain Sandy Hook boy in August, among other arguments.
And in Waterbury, a state judge was reading arguments by eight Sandy Hook families who won a $965 million jury award against Jones in October about why the court should reject Jones’ request to invalidate the jury award because of its sheer size.
“Every indication, from the overwhelming evidence of catastrophic harm to the attentiveness of the jury, supports the conclusion that the jury discharged its obligations carefully, dutifully, and according to the court’s instructions,” reads a motion by the families’ attorneys in Connecticut filed on Monday. “All observations of the jury’s behavior indicate that it took its task extremely seriously. The jury paid dedicated and sober attention to the presentation of evidence and the court’s reading of its instructions.”
Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis will hear arguments in early December about Jones’ request for a new trial and to invalidate the jury’s $965 million award, which Jones calls “a substantial miscarriage of justice.”
“The cumulative weight of the court’s ruling on pre-trial motions and its evidentiary rulings resulted in a complete abdication of the trial court’s role in assuring a fair trial,” Jones’ New Haven attorney Norm Pattis argued earlier this month.”
Bellis is the same judge who added onto Jones’ punishment in early November with a $473 million judgment in additional defamation damages —ordering Jones to pay the families’ $320 million attorney fees, and giving the FBI agent and 14 family members who lost loved ones in the Sandy Hook massacre an additional $10 million each in punitive damages.
In Texas on Tuesday, lawyers for the parents of the slain Sandy Hook boy started arguments by asking for sanctions against Jones’ lead Texas lawyer, Andino Reynal, for a “bad faith” bankruptcy filing days before the trial was to begin.
“The point of this bankruptcy was to stop the trial,” the parents’ lead attorney Mark Bankston said during a livestreamed hearing. “It was done on the eve of the trial for a purpose.”
The parents’ attorneys were expected to argue that the Texas cap on damages does not apply to the $45 million punitive portion of their jury award, because the parents qualify as disabled individuals due to their severe emotional disturbance.Jones’ attorneys argue that the parents are attempting an 11th-hour stunt to exploit a loophole in the cap law, and that the parents never claimed they were disabled people during the trial.