Judge Rules Sandy Hook Parents' Defamation Lawsuit Against Alex Jones May Go Forward
Jones tried to quash the families' defamation complaints at the earliest stage, but the judge was not having it.
Juanita Jean's son Mark Bankston has won Round One of the Sandy Hook parents' defamation lawsuit against Alex Jones.
At the beginning of the month, Jones sought to have the parents' cases dismissed under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, which protects the right to free speech. But the judge ruled otherwise.
The lawsuits were brought against Jones because for years he maintained the Sandy Hook shootings were a hoax perpetrated by anti-gun factions.
The New York Times reports:
The lawsuit was filed in state district court in Austin by Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner, parents of Noah Pozner, who was 6 years old when he was killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
On his radio broadcast and in videos, Mr. Jones for years spread bogus claims that the shooting was a “false flag,” an event staged by the government as part of an effort to confiscate Americans’ firearms, and that the parents of the children killed were “crisis actors.”
After Mr. Pozner succeeded in getting an Infowars video casting doubt on the shooting removed from YouTube, Mr. Jones showed his audience Mr. Pozner’s personal information and maps to addresses associated with his family, court documents say. Mr. Jones also falsely accused Ms. De La Rosa of participating in a faked interview with Anderson Cooper of CNN after the shooting, according to court documents.
Subsequent death threats and harassment have forced the Pozner family to move seven times. They currently live in hiding.
Congratulations to attorneys Mark Bankston and William Ogden for the early victory. I cannot wait to see what discovery brings!