A judge has denied right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ attempt to delay his deposition in a lawsuit over his false claims about the Sandy Hook massacre after he appeared on his show while claiming to be too sick to appear in court.
Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis on Tuesday ordered that the deposition go ahead as planned at 9am local time in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday, suggesting that Mr Jones’ legal team “unknowingly misled” the court with its attempts to postpone it over his mystery illness.
Kevin Smith, an attorney for the Infowars host, filed a motion on Monday claiming that he is too sick to sit for the deposition.
The motion included a seven-sentence letter from an unnamed physician, citing unnamed “medical conditions” that mean Mr Jones “is remaining at home”, reported CT Insider.
But, the judge turned down the claim at a hearing on Tuesday, pointing out that, at the time he was allegedly sick and being seen by a doctor, he managed to host his Infowars show.
Judge Bellis raised doubts about the letter’s authenticity saying she has “no idea” if it is “genuine” or if the doctor is “currently licensed”.
“It appears to the court unreasonable to suggest that Jones can broadcast live for hours, whether it’s from home, remotely, or from a studio but he cannot sit for a deposition,” she told the court in her ruling.
Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the victims’ families, called the motion “extraordinarily disturbing” and “another threadbare attempt to delay these proceedings and to shield Mr Jones from an experience that puts him in peril”.
On Monday, Mr Jones welcomed a doctor on his four-hour show - Dr. Ben Marble, a Florida-based physician who created a free telehealth website for Covid-19 and is a member of right-wing group America’s Frontline Doctors.
The deposition is the latest step in a years-long lawsuit brought by families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre against Mr Jones.
On 14 December 2012, 20 students aged six and seven years old and six staff members were shot and killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
In the aftermath of what remains the worst crime in modern Connecticut history, Mr Jones made several false claims that the mass shooting was a “false flag” operation engineered by the government to bring about stricter gun control laws.
Through his radio show and his website, he told his following that the shooting was “completely fake with actors,” “staged”, “synthetic”, “manufactured” and a “giant hoax”.
The families of Sandy Hook victims were subjected to years of in-person and online harassment over his false claims, all the while Mr Jones financially profited by spreading the conspiracies.
Four separate defamation lawsuits were brought by the families of 10 victims in Texas and Connecticut against him over his false claims.
After rumbling on for years, in November, Judge Bellis ruled on the fourth and final lawsuit, finding Mr Jones guilty by default.
With the families winning all defamation cases against the conspiracy theorist, jury trials will now decide how much he has to pay them.
