Alex Jones trial: After heated exchanges between lawyers, jurors shown InfoWars videos

The start of the third day of the Alex Jones-Sandy Hook trial was delayed for an hour Thursday to resolve a dispute over video evidence that had grown heated between lawyers a day earlier.

In the end, Jones lawyer Andino Reynal was denied the opportunity to play two clips from Jones' InfoWars show totaling 18 minutes but was allowed to show jurors a long segment that had aired on the day that 26 children and educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012.

The 50-minute clip began with Jones criticizing calls for gun control spurred by the tragedy, then quickly raising prospect of the shooting being a staged event to promote gun control.

"Don't think the globalists who hijacked our country wouldn't stage something like this," Jones says. "Don't ever think this couldn't be staged."

In a second segment from early 2013 played by the defense, Jones — shortly after explaining that he believed federal agents planted the bomb used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing — says he believes children were really killed in Sandy Hook but adds that evidence of it being a scripted event is "uncontroverted."

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The trial in downtown Austin is to determine how much money Jones must pay to the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis for defamation and inflicting emotional distress for calling them liars and government conspirators in a shooting that Jones claimed was faked to provide a pretext for confiscating guns nationwide.

Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, Jesse's parents, have asked the jury to order Jones to pay $150 million in damages. After jurors decide damages for defamation and emotional distress, they will hear evidence of Jones' net worth and be asked to award punitive damages.

Both parents have been in the courtroom throughout the trial, which could take two weeks.

Jones, whose attendance has been sporadic, was in the courtroom Thursday morning, but he slipped out after about an hour, trailed by two bodyguards who were sitting immediately behind him at the defense table and two others who were in the audience. He returned in the afternoon.

'Worst decision ever made'

In Thursday afternoon testimony, InfoWars producer Daria Karpova — who had been on the stand since Tuesday — testified that the show's reliance on Sandy Hook denier Wolfgang Halbig in 2014-15 "was the worst decision ever made by the company."

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Halbig held himself out as an expert in school safety but was not, Karpova said, adding that InfoWars believed his credentials at the time but had "very limited personnel to take care of a lot of issues."

Heavily influenced by Halbig, Jones questioned whether children had actually died at Sandy Hook, but he no longer believes that, Karpova said. "It weighs very heavily on his heart still," she said.

Reynal also played a short clip from Father's Day in 2017 in which Jones said he was reaching out to the parents of Sandy Hook students to "give you my sincere condolences" and invite them to open a dialogue with him. No one accepted the offer, Karpova said.

Asked by Reynal about how Jones had changed in the past four years, Karpova said he's always stressed out, frantic, can't relax and worries about sources of money and support. She blamed misinformation about Jones' views on Sandy Hook for his new demeanor.

The parents' lawyer, Mark Bankston, jumped on that, noting that Jones' lies about Sandy Hook and the parents were the reason for the trial.

"When people lie about you it affects you negatively, it affects your well-being? Do you understand the irony, the hypocrisy of making that statement in this courtroom right now?" he asked.

Karpova: "It's just the truth. What am I supposed to say?"

Tempers flare in courtroom

The dispute over video evidence had cropped up in the closing minutes of Wednesday's session when Reynal moved to admit a nine-minute InfoWars segment but Bankston objected.

After jurors were sent home, Reynal said he wanted to show complete segments to counter "little clips of cherry-picked videos" that Bankston had shown jurors. But state District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble reminded Reynal that he was supposed to have submitted all evidence at a pretrial hearing but didn't have the videos ready, handcuffing his presentation and putting the court in a bind.

Then tempers flared.

Reynal pointed to a written list of videos that had been submitted to the court, saying he believed he and Bankston had reached a pretrial agreement on admitting them.

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Bankston disagreed, saying any agreement would have been submitted to the court in writing. "That is a list of videos produced," he said. "I did not agree that they be introduced."

"Bankston is being dishonest with the court," Reynal said, repeating that he believed there was an agreement to introduce the videos into evidence.

Exasperated, the judge ordered Reynal and Bankston to get together to work out an agreement on the videos.

Guerra Gamble also said she was going to chalk up Reynal's accusations to a tough day in court with emotions running high, adding, "If you are going to call other attorneys in my courtroom dishonest, you have to back that up."

'You take it outside'

The judge left the courtroom, but Reynal again accused Bankston of lying, and their exchange grew so heated that another lawyer stepped in to say that negotiations would begin later in the night, by phone, after heads cooled.

Back in court Thursday morning and with jurors not present, Guerra Gamble immediately addressed the situation.

"The next time anyone wants to have an argument, you take it outside. You do not have it in here," she said.

Reynal rose to apologize, saying his words were inappropriate and acknowledging that the parents' legal team had filed several motions asking the judge to sanction him for the outburst.

"I'm not surprised," the judge said.

Reynal also said he emailed the parents' lawyers to apologize and to offer hopes that they could work together. He also said the dispute now boiled down to two videos of InfoWars segments totaling 18 minutes.

The judge then left the court to review the footage in private. When Guerra Gamble returned, she upheld Bankston's objections, and Reynal began playing InfoWars segments that had already been introduced into evidence.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Alex Jones trial: After heated dispute, jurors shown InfoWars videos