Alex Jones hit with yet another lawsuit from a Sandy Hook parent

ed note–Not gonna say we told ya so, but,

Well, never mind–We told ya so.

statesman.com

A Travis County courtroom on Thursday was once again the scene for sparring between attorneys for Alex Jones and the parent of a child killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, a tragedy that the Austin conspiracy theorist and his InfoWars website for years suggested was a hoax.

The latest suit was brought on behalf of Scarlett Lewis, whose son was one of 20 first-graders, along with six educators, shot to death Dec. 14, 2012, by 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who also killed his mother and himself.

Unlike other Sandy Hook parents who brought two defamation suits against Jones in Travis County state District Court last summer, Lewis was never mentioned by name in the countless hours and stories of contentious InfoWars coverage of the school massacre. Lewis is suing Jones claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress.

In Lewis’ suit, Houston attorney Mark Bankston contends that “since the day of the shooting, InfoWars has aggressively promoted a dreadful and despicable false narrative about Sandy Hook, mocking the families as liars and accusing them of a sinister conspiracy.”

“These baseless and vile accusations, which have been pushed by InfoWars and Mr. Jones on a continuous basis since the shooting, advance the idea that the Sandy Hook massacre did not happen, or that it was staged by the government and concealed using actors, and that the families of the victims are participants in a horrifying coverup,” Bankston wrote. “Infowars knew its assertions were false or made these statements with reckless and outrageous disregard for their truth.”

Jones, who broadcasts from his hometown of Austin, was not in the mostly empty courtroom on the fourth floor of the courthouse for the late afternoon hearing before District Judge Scott Jenkins, who is handling the three Sandy Hook lawsuits against him.

Neither was Lewis, who has not done interviews to discuss the case, but issued a short statement when the suit was filed.

“After learning that my family was specifically targeted in Mr. Jones’ campaign of attacks, I have struggled with how best to address the profound distress he has inflicted,” Lewis said in his statement. ’In the end, I have decided that I must join those who are standing up against Mr. Jones and his despicable actions.”

Dallas attorney Mark Enoch, representing Jones, said the bombastic broadcaster never intended to specifically harm Lewis. He added that there has never been a Texas case in which a group of people was maligned and somebody from the group stepped forward to successfully claim they were the victim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Bankston challenged that representation, but said the Texas Supreme Court has not spoken on the matter. Jenkins said this is the case that could change that.

Enoch said it did not matter whether Jones’ claims were false. Bankston said the falsity of the claims was central to the case.

Enoch also said that, as heinous as many people might think what Jones and his collaborators on InfoWars said and wrote was, “the other side is they are talking about political views that they hold and care about very deeply.”

Thursday’s hearing, the first in the case, was on a motion by Bankston that would allow him to obtain information from Jones and InfoWars in advance of a May 2 hearing. In that hearing, Enoch will seek to have the case dismissed under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, a law intended to protect citizens’ First Amendment rights from meritless claims intended to silence them.

Enoch said the plaintiffs already have in their possession at least 32 InfoWars episodes and vast tracts of website content, but referring to Jones and his InfoWars collaborators, Jenkins said, “they know what you said, they want to make a case that you knew better than to say it … that show you kind of knew what you were doing to these parents and you kept doing it.”

Jenkins plans to issue an order Friday that would permit limited expedited discovery by Bankston, including a four-hour deposition with Jones and a 2½ hour interview with Robert Jacobson, a former longtime video editor with InfoWars, by March 10. Bankston said Jacobson approached him saying he had pertinent information but would need whistleblower protection because he signed a nondisclosure agreement with InfoWars. Jacobson is also pursuing a religious discrimination complaint against Jones.

It has been a tumultuous time for Jones, whose fame and power reached its zenith with the election of Donald Trump, with whom he has had a symbiotic political relationship. But in the last six months, in part because of the controversy surrounding Sandy Hook, Jones’ content has been knocked off YouTube, Twitter and other major social media platforms, dramatically lowering his public profile.