Sandy Hook parents seek more court-ordered sanctions against Alex Jones
AUSTIN, Texas — The parents of two children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting have asked a Travis County judge to impose additional sanctions against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for continued obstruction of their lawsuits.
Jones has already been assessed almost $150,000 in court-ordered penalties for failing to give the parents required information and for filing a frivolous appeal seeking to dismiss their lawsuits.
The parents’ lawyer, Mark Bankston, was back in court Monday seeking additional fines against Jones and his lawyer for so thoroughly blocking access to information that pretrial discovery became “an enormous waste of time.”
But money isn’t enough to set things right, Bankston argued.
He also asked state District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble for an order blocking Jones’ lawyers from conducting their own pretrial discovery for the next phase of the lawsuits — determining how much money Jones and his companies owe the parents for broadcasts that called the school shooting a hoax.
“You can’t have a situation where (Jones) has abused discovery so thoroughly and so completely, and caused us so much problems, preventing us from proving so many things,” Bankston said. “Now they want to turn around and say let us do discovery on damages, let us get the benefit of that?
That’s not fair.”
Brad Reeves, Jones’ lawyer, disputed the characterization, saying he had done the best he could to meet information demands that were frequently unclear or too sweeping.
“I’m not entirely sure what else we can do,” Reeves told the judge.
Guerra Gamble said she will take the request under advisement and issue a ruling at a future, unspecified date.
Monday’s hearing was the first time the opposing sides were in court since
Guerra Gamble ruled in late September that Jones is liable for defamation and emotional distress caused by broadcasts that questioned the validity of the mass shooting.
In that ruling, Guerra Gamble granted the parents’ request for default judgments against Jones and his Austin-based Infowars media system, ruling that Jones’ continued bad-faith approach to the lawsuits warranted a courtroom victory for the parents without having to go to trial.