The lawyer who represented right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in his defamation trials has been suspended from practicing law after he improperly released court records pertaining to the case.
Mr Jones’ lawyer, Norm Pattis, released two years worth of his client’s text messages, medical records from Sandy Hook families, and other confidential discovery items during the trial, Connecticut Judge Barbara Bellis wrote in a court order.
"At a basic level, attorneys must competently and appropriately handle the discovery of sensitive materials in civil cases," she wrote. "Otherwise, our civil system, in which discovery of sensitive information is customary and routine, would simply collapse."
Mr Pattis’ license will be suspended for six months, according to CNN.
The attorney claimed that the release of the documents was an "inadvertent mistake," but Ms Bellis wrote she "flatly rejected" that claim.
She went on to claim that Mr Pattis "failed to provide even the minimal amount of attention and care required when it came to handling the plaintiffs’ sensitive discovery materials."
"We cannot expect our system of justice or our attorneys to be perfect, but we can expect fundamental fairness and decency," she wrote. "There was no fairness or decency in the treatment of the plaintiffs’ most sensitive and personal information, and no excuse for [Mr Pattis’] misconduct."
In early August, Mr Jones’ defense team sent Mark Bankston, the attorney representing the parents of a 6-year-old boy who was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, the sensitive documents, which included two years worth of Mr Jones’ text messages.
During a revelatory moment of the trial Mr Bankston announced that he had been given all of the documents, claiming he caught Mr Jones in a lie.
"That is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have text messages about Sandy Hook," he said during the trial. "Did you know that?"
According to CNN, despite his suspension, Mr Pattis is working on the legal team defending Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs in a seditious conspiracy trial in Washington DC.
Mr Pattis alerted the judge in that case to his pending suspension and said he planned to appeal the court order. According to CNN, he said he would continue to represent Mr Biggs.
The Independent has reached out for comment.
