Alex Jones says he won’t put on defense case; both sides rest cases in Sandy Hook defamation trial

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 by operation of law he has been placed in an untenable position …,” Pattis told Bellis.

Cutting Pattis off, Bellis said, “I can’t address what his thought process is. I’m not going there.” She told the jury simply that Jones chose not to testify, which is his right.

Closing arguments were scheduled Thursday morning.

Twenty first graders and six educators died on Dec. 14, 2012 after a mentally unbalanced 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, on-line 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.

Among other things, Jones told an audience of tens of millions that he reached over the internet and through a syndicated radio program that the dead children and their grieving parents were crisis actors and that the school had been closed years before the shooting.

The victims contend that Jones unleashed an army of conspiracy theorists on them. The default ruling settled that contention in the family’s favor — the jury will be told that Jones’ false broadcasts were the cause of the harassment and mental anguish they have suffered.

The suits accuse Jones of defamation, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and, significantly, violation of the state unfair trade practices law. If the families are able to convince the jury that Jones spread lies and fear for profit, it could find him responsible for damages under the trade practices law, known as CUPTA, which puts no limit on compensation.

After the jury was excused for the day, Pattis failed to persuade Bellis to remove the CUPTA count from the suit, arguing that there is no evidence that Jones’ “commercial activity” — he sells nutritional supplements and survivalist goods through on-line retail sites — is responsible for the harassment of the families.

During the trial, lawyers for the victim families gave the jury evidence — most of it video clips from Jones’ broadcasts and analyses of traffic to his multiple internet sites — showing that he was aware that his Sandy Hook hoax broadcasts resulted in increased audience and that resulted in spikes in sales.

The family lawyers suggested in their questioning that Jones pushed Sandy Hook hoax programming because he knew the increased audience he attracted would be directed to his retail sites.

Pattis said the families are using “a novel and terrible application of CUPTA” to obtain a damage verdict so massive it puts Jones out of business. He conceded a jury could conclude Jones’ lies about Sandy Hook were odious, defamatory and the inspiration for harassment. But he said CUPTA was written to protect consumers from harmful commercial activity.

“If someone had gone out and bought a gross of these pills and thrown them at someone, that might be an argument, assuming that he had encouraged people to to that,” Pattis said.

“What we have here is a novel attempt to use CUPTA to silence unpopular speech and the purpose is plain,” Pattis said. “The purpose of this litigation is to silence Alex Jones. And the only way they are going to be able to do that is with an enormous punitive damage award which this court has the discretion to award under CUPTA.”

Family lawyer Alinor Sterling argued that the defamation and emotional distress suffered by the relatives are the result of Jones’ broadcast and sales business, making it precisely the sort of conduct protected by CUPTA.

“What it describes is a commercial course of conduct that is built on targeting and victimizing these families by lying about them,” she said. “So certainly, lies are in the mix. But what the court heard was not just the occasional lie. It is the use of lies to sell products, to fuel a business.

“There is a business plan to hurt these families and to sell things by hurting them,” she said.