Alex Jones’ tour of the U.S. court system continues this week as he is set to begin a new trial for his lies and defamation regarding the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.
Last month, Jones stood trial for those lies in a Texas courthouse. After nearly a full decade of publicly calling the shooting a hoax and sending his fans to harass and dox the parents of murdered children, that was the first time Jones was forced to face a jury for his actions. He had already been found liable to those parents for damages; the jury’s job was to decide how much Jones would have to pay. They ended up awarding the parents of Jesse Lewis, who was just six years old when he was murdered, nearly $50 million altogether. (Although thanks to Texas’ cap on punitive damages, the actual amount they’ll receive is likely much, much lower.)
Now Jones is going through all of it again in Connecticut. As in Texas, he’s already been found liable, and the jury will decide how much he owes the plaintiffs in three lawsuits, which have been consolidated. The 15 plaintiffs involved include relatives of nine victims and a former FBI agent.
According to the AP, Jones’ trial is expected to last about four weeks. That’s much shorter than his Texas case, which was a brief open-and-shut event given that Jones basically refused to participate in his own trial, offering no evidence or defense of any kind. (His lawyers did, though, accidentally provide opposing counsel with a trove of evidence proving Jones had repeatedly lied under oath. It’s hard to imagine this trial going much worse for Jones than that one did but we’ll see!)
After the Connecticut trial wraps up, Jones still won’t be done. He’s got a third trial scheduled back in Texas in a suit brought by more Sandy Hook parents.
(image: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)
