WATERBURY, Conn. — Both sides rested their cases Wednesday in the Sandy Hook defamation case against far-right broadcaster Alex Jones, who began trying almost immediately in a post-trial motion to limit the tens of millions of dollars in damages he could be ordered to pay families of victims of the school shooting.
But first, Jones said he would not testify or put on any defense at all, reversing the position he had taken since the start of the damages trial. He had his lawyer read a statement that amounted to another in a succession of criticisms of an unusual default ruling a year ago by presiding Judge Barbara Bellis that punished Jones for violating court orders and settled the suit in favor of the families suing him.
Jones’ lawyer, Norman A. Pattis, told the court his client believes that if he testified in accordance with the default ruling and related restrictions on what he could say, he would be testifying falsely and be guilty of perjury. If he violated the orders, Jones’ believes he would likely be found in criminal contempt of court.
“So from Mr. Jones’ perspective," Pattis told Bellis, "by operation of law he has been placed in an untenable position —"
Cutting Pattis off, Bellis said, “I can’t address what his thought process is. I’m not going there.”
Twenty first graders and six educators died on Dec. 14, 2012, after a 20-year-old shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and began systematically killing people. Relatives of nine of the victims and an FBI agent who was among the law enforcement response sued Jones in the case before Bellis in Waterbury Superior Court.
Because of the default ruling, the Waterbury trial has been limited to the question of how much those suing Jones are entitled to as compensation for living through a decades of abuse, online and in-person harassment and death threats by people who agree with Jones’ assertions that the school massacre never happened.
For years, beginning hours after the school shooting in Newtown, Jones used his far-reaching broadcast and internet platforms to deliver conspiratorial rants claiming that Sandy Hook was a hoax contrived to win support for gun control by a cabal of evil globalists bent on disarming and enslaving the world.
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