Alex Jones’ lies about Sandy Hook driven by profit, victims’ lawyer says at trial

WATERBURY, Conn., Sept 13 (Reuters) – A lawyer for families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting told a Connecticut jury on Tuesday that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones would never stop profiting from destructive lies unless he pays for his lies about massacres.

The attorney, Christopher Mattei, made his assessment during opening statements Tuesday, nearly a decade after 20 children and six staff members were killed Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

In Jones’ second trial related to the massacre, jurors will decide how much in damages he owes 13 family members of victims as well as an FBI agent for claiming the massacre was a hoax.

Jones’ trial in a court in Waterbury, Connecticut, about 20 miles from Newtown, comes a month after an Austin, Texas jury awarded two parents $49.3 million in a similar case.

Mattei told jurors it was important to stop Jones and his right-wing Infowars brand from “preying on people who are helpless” and encouraging years of harassment from Jones’ followers.

“They knew the harassment was going on, but the lies were too profitable,” Mattei said.

He said Infowars, which is based in Austin, drew millions of followers with false claims about Sandy Hook and made as much as $800,000 a day selling nutritional supplements, doomsday supplies and other products.

Jones’ attorney Norman Pattis countered during his opening statement that the families “exaggerated their injury for political reasons” and viewed a large damages award as a “weapon” to silence Infowars.

“We’re going to ask you to disarm them,” Pattis told jurors.

Jones did not attend the start of the trial, which is expected to last five weeks, but Pattis said he will testify.

The plaintiffs sued Jones and Infowar’s parent company Free Speech Systems LLC in 2018.

They said the harassment was carried out by people who believed Jones’ false claims that the government staged the Sandy Hook shooting with crisis actors as a pretext to seize guns and that the families faked their children’s deaths.

Jones has since acknowledged that the shooting took place.

OVERWHELMED

Some families in the gallery clutched each other’s hands tightly and fought back tears as the first plaintiff to testify, FBI agent Bill Aldenberg, described the shooting scene and death threats families received as they prepared for funerals.

“It overwhelms your senses. It’s horrible,” he said.

Another plaintiff, Carlee Soto Parisi, tearfully described her sister’s death at Sandy Hook and the subsequent deluge of social media posts saying she was a crisis actor.

“It’s hurtful, it’s devastating, it’s crippling. You can’t breathe properly,” she said.

Adam Lanza, the gunman, used a Remington Bushmaster rifle when he shot his way into the school after shooting his mother to death at home. The massacre ended when Lanza killed himself when he heard police sirens approaching.

Jurors will decide exclusively how much Jones and Free Speech Systems must pay for spreading lies about the massacre.

A judge entered a default judgment in the case in November after Jones failed to comply with court orders.

Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy in July. That would typically shield the company from lawsuits, but it agreed to stand trial in August.

In a Tuesday hearing in the bankruptcy case, a judge denied Free Speech Systems’ request to reimburse Jones for travel expenses and security details.

The $49.3 million award in Austin can be significantly reduced because it consists mostly of non-economic damages intended to punish Jones for his conduct.

An attorney for Jones has said he will try to reduce the $45.2 million compensatory damages component to $1.5 million, citing a Texas law that imposes a cap. Lawyers for the parents have said the cap does not apply and Jones should pay the full amount.

Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Mark Porter, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman

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