Far-right radio host Alex Jones, widely known for baselessly claiming that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, was found guilty in all four defamation suits filed by families of victims of the tragedy.
The decision came on Tuesday, when a superior court in Connecticut handed down a sweeping win to the families of victims due to Jones' "failure to produce critical material information that the plaintiffs needed to prove their claims," according to Judge Barbara Bellis. The plaintiffs have broadly – and now successfully – argued that Jones stood to gain from promulgating damaging conspiracies about the tragedy.
The ruling, which marks a conclusive end to the years-long suits, comes on the heels of three Texas rulings back in October that similarly found the "Infowars" host guilty by default.
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"The Court finds that Defendants' failure to comply … is greatly aggravated by [their] consistent pattern of discovery abuse throughout similar cases pending before this Court," Judge Maya Guerra Gamble wrote at the time.
Jones, for his part, has vehemently denied ever profiting from his bogus claims, saying last month in an interview that "Sandy Hook is a blip on the radar screen in the different stories … I've covered."
In a deposition from 2019, Jones claimed that his judgement was impoaired due to a "form of psychosis."
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"I, myself, have almost had, like, a form of psychosis back in the past where I basically thought everything was staged, even though I've now learned a lot of times things aren't staged," he said at the time. "So I think as a pundit, someone giving an opinion, that, you know, my opinions have been wrong, but they were never wrong consciously to hurt people."
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The tragedy took place back in December 2012, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and six adult staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Shortly following the shooting, Jones began to gin up baseless claims that the victims of Sandy Hook – and their families – were "crisis actors" in a false-flag operation perpetrated by the anti-gun lobby. Jones' misinformation campaign reportedly provoked his listeners to harass the victims' relatives, namely parents Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, who later filed a suit of their own. Pozner has argued that he was forced to move several times as a result of death threats.
The judge is set to hold on hearing on the precise damages Jone will be expected to pay.
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