HARTFORD, Conn. — In a sharply critical decision, a Superior Court judge has suspended Infowars broadcaster Alex Jones’ lawyer Norm Pattis from practicing law for six months for the “inexcusable” disclosure of thousands of protected medical and psychiatric records obtained from relatives of Sandy Hook shooting victims.
Judge Barbara Bellis, who presided over the contentious Connecticut case that ended last year in a $1.4 billion verdict, said Pattis’ failure to protect highly sensitive records entrusted to his office caused them to be “carelessly passed around from one unauthorized person to another” in violation of multiple court orders.
Bellis said that Pattis’ “abject failure to safeguard the plaintiff’s sensitive records” violated a half dozen rules of professional conduct, including those having to do with misconduct and competence. What’s more, she said his misconduct in general was worsened by his decision to assert his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination and refuse to answer questions about the improper disclosure during a hearing she convened in court last year.
“We cannot expect our system of justice or our attorneys to be perfect but we can expect fundamental fairness and decency,” Bellis wrote in her 49-page decision filed late Thursday. “There was no fairness or decency in the treatment of the plaintiff’s most sensitive and personal information, and no excuse for (Pattis’) conduct.”
Pattis, who has clashed before with Bellis during his defense of Jones, said he has asked her to postpone the suspension while he appeals. Should she refuse, Pattis said he will seek a postponement from the state Appellate Court.
“We look forward to appearing before a panel of judges who will listen at the Appellate Court,” Pattis said.
Pattis, who said he had not read the decision, was in Washington, D.C., participating in the defense of five members of the far right Proud Boys organization charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. He said he will appear in U.S. District Court there Monday morning to ask for an order postponing imposition of the suspension at least for the duration of the Proud Boys trial.
The confidential records at the center of the suspension, about 4,000 pages of medical records that were among about 390,000 pages of other records provided to Pattis’ office by relatives of Sandy Hook victims, were never disclosed publicly. Rather, Pattis set in motion a series of exchanges that distributed the records between his law office in Connecticut and three others in Texas — all of which were involved in some fashion in lawsuits by Sandy Hook relatives against Jones.
Bellis issued orders closely restricting disclosure of the records based on concern that the Jones camp could make the highly personal medical material public and use it in an attempt to discredit the Connecticut families who were suing him. The families, who claimed Jones had ruined their lives with his broadcasts calling the 2012 school massacre a hoax, were required as part of the case to provide Jones with records of their mental and physical well being.
The sharing of the records among the law firms, which should have been subject to Bellis’ orders, was revealed in Texas last summer when a lawyer representing Sandy Hook parents suing Jones there made the dramatic announcement in court that he had improperly been provided with protected records. The Texas lawyer said he destroyed the records.
Inquiries following the dramatic announcement revealed that the transfer of the records began in Pattis’ office at the request of a Texas lawyer and continued — apparently without regard to a concern raised by one lawyer that such sharing of the records could be in violation of Bellis’ protective orders.
In an email exchange reproduced in Bellis’ decision, Pattis appears to take responsibility for the disclosure.
“I directed an associate to send our files to the two attorneys who requested them to defend Alex,” Pattis wrote to family lawyer Christopher Mattei, within days of the improper disclosure becoming known. “I did not direct the associate to withhold the (Connecticut plaintiffs) information. If that is an error, responsibility for it falls on my shoulders.”
In her decision, Bellis said that Pattis acted “knowingly and intentionally” in disregard to his duty as a lawyer and to her court orders.
She said the Connecticut families suffered by having records “passed around” without their consent. But she said the actual harm experienced by the families paled in comparison to the “stunning” potential harm they could have experienced had the records become public.
Bellis said Pattis’ disclosure of the medical records was not the first time in the case that he had been reprimanded for improperly disclosing information made confidential under her orders. She said protection of medical and psychiatric records had been a concern of the court and the families since June 2021.
At about that time, she said, Pattis had disclosed information designated under her orders as “Highly Confidential — Attorneys Eyes Only” in a motion by Jones to order the deposition of Hillary Clinton.
At the time, in August 2021, Bellis accused Pattis of “cavalier actions and willful misconduct” that gave the families suing Jones reason to be “rightfully concerned that their confidential information including their psychiatric and medical histories, would be made available to the public.” She said at that time she would consider sanctions against Pattis “at a future hearing.”
The discipline of Pattis and his decision to assert the Fifth Amendment when ordered to explain why he shouldn’t be, is just one part of a string of contentious moments in a case that began in 2018, returned a potentially record-setting verdict and promises to continue indefinitely through appeals in both the state courts in Connecticut and Texas state courts and in federal bankruptcy court.
When Jones appeared in court last fall, ordered to appear as a witness for the families suing him, his testimony ended in a shouting match with Mattei. Pattis stood at the defense table shouting objection and Bellis watched in resignation until the exchange died down.
Jones arrived for a series of impromptu press conferences outside the courthouse, at which he ridiculed what was happening inside as a “kangaroo court.”
Pattis has tried and failed to have Bellis disqualified from presiding over the Jones trial. He also took aim at her in late October when he moved to set aside the verdicts — $965 million in compensatory and $473 million in punitive damages — and have a new trial ordered.
“In short, the defendants contend that the cumulative weight of the court’s ruling on pretrial motions and its evidentiary rulings resulted in a complete abdication of the trial court’s role in assuring a fair trial and that the amount of the compensatory damages award exceeds any rational relationship to the evidence offered at trial,” Pattis wrote in a motion to set aside the verdict.
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