Sandy Hook parents ask Texas judge to sanction InfoWars founder Alex Jones in defamation suits

 AUSTIN, Texas — The parents of two children killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary are seeking a default judgment against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in hopes of sending their lawsuits directly to trial over how much money they're owed by Jones and his InfoWars media system.

In four lawsuits, the parents say they were defamed and suffered emotional distress after InfoWars broadcasts called the school shooting — which left 26 children and six adults dead in Newtown, Connecticut — a hoax.

On Tuesday, their lawyer appeared before state District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin to argue that Jones must be sanctioned for violating rules on pretrial discovery, as well as previous court orders, by withholding vital information that was first requested in 2018.

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"We still don't have the most basic information about this case," lawyer Mark Bankston told the judge, arguing that Jones has failed to provide a wide range of requested evidence, including video of his on-air discussions about Sandy Hook, relevant transcripts and the content of social media accounts.

"Now we're talking about having to find people three years out... to see who was involved in this case, who might still have documents," Bankston said. "The quality of the evidence and of people's memories all degrades."

Jones also declined to directly answer many of the questions asked during a sworn deposition, he said.

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Because the pattern of abuse was so egregious, Bankston argued, the parents should be able to skip next year's trials on whether Jones defamed them and proceed directly to determine how much money they're owed in damages.

Bankston also asked the judge to find Jones in contempt of court for violating previous orders to provide the requested information.

Jones' lead lawyer, Brad Reeves, said a default judgment against his client would be a "hugely excessive" response to pretrial discovery problems that he was working hard to address.

'11th-hour fig leaf'

Reeves asked Guerra Gamble for two more weeks to wade through 75,000 pages of documents, noting that he submitted about 6,000 pages to Bankston on Thursday evening. 

"I've already worked to supplement (discovery) production. I continue to work on that," Reeves said. "I need to give him full and complete answers. That's what I'm trying to do."

But Bankston said the "document dump," only days before Tuesday's hearing, was inadequate after Jones' lawyers "threw away the entire summer doing nothing."

"It's 6,000 pages of mostly useless documents," Bankston added, likening it to an "11th-hour fig leaf over (their) naked contempt."

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Bankston also complained that Reeves filed written responses to his motions for default and contempt of court judgments only one day before Tuesday's hearing.

"I do feel like that was done in a calculated way so there would be no time to reply to that," Bankston said. "I agree with you," Guerra Gamble said, telling Reeves that she will take the rare step of imposing strict deadlines for court filings. "If they're late, they won't be considered," she said.

Jones and InfoWars have already been hit with more than $150,000 in court-ordered sanctions for failing to meet their discovery commitments. That sum could grow if Guerra Gamble grants the requested default judgments.

Sandy Hook parents file four lawsuits against Alex Jones and InfoWars 

The four lawsuits — filed in Travis County, where Jones and his InfoWars media system are based — seek monetary awards for defamation and the intentional infliction of emotional distress:

Neil Heslin, father of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, filed two lawsuits taking exception to statements by Jones alleging that the school shooting was "a giant hoax" and disputing Heslin’s claim that he had held his dead son in his arms afterward.

Scarlett Lewis, mother of Jesse Lewis, complained that Jones called the school shooting "as phony as a three-dollar bill" and that other statements on InfoWars implied that parents were not genuinely grieving the loss of their children.

Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, quoted broadcasts in which Jones cast the school shooting as a "false flag" hoax to create a pretext for government action limiting gun rights.

In January, the Texas Supreme Court rejected Jones' attempt to toss out the lawsuits, upholding rulings from two lower courts that had allowed the parents' complaints to continue.

Lawyers for Jones argued that the InfoWars host was engaging in protected speech because he was addressing matters of public concern. 

"The pursuit of so-called 'conspiracy theories' concerning controversial government activities has been a part and parcel of American political discourse since our Founding, and it is protected by the First Amendment," they told the Supreme Court.