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Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

247 points by vinni2 4y ago

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SteveMorin 4y ago
So glad for that verdict. Lies should be allowed to that degree.
ericmcer 4y ago
Ignoring that Jones is a garbage human and just focusing on the case: that isn’t protected free speech? I don’t know all the rules around when speech isn’t protected but the article doesn’t really cover why this wasn’t. Does this set a precedent that anyone who spouts conspiracy theories about an event is targetable by those who suffered from that event?
- ajaimk 4y ago
  The plaintiffs lawyer said is best, "Speech is free, but lies you have to pay for."
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  - hunterb123 4y ago
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- BooneJS 4y ago
  Defamation, Slander, etc. None are protected. Free speech protects you from the Government, not your fellow citizens.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    The court is part of the government.
    - function_seven 4y ago
      The court oversaw the case. It did not bring it. Example: I specifically prohibit peanuts in my kitchen, because I serve meals to allergic children. You sneak peanuts into the kitchen. I sue you and win. Does this mean "Peanuts are illegal"? No. I have a civil action and we have a system of civil courts wherein these grievances can be aired and adjudicated.
    - bandyaboot 4y ago
      Leaving aside the absurd logic, it doesn’t matter. Slanderous speech is not protected speech…the government is allowed and expected to facilitate consequences.
    - decebalus1 4y ago
      That's a false equivalence. The court mediates the case between private parties. That's what civil court does. This is not a trial between 'the people' (the State) and Alex Jones. It's between some of the parents of the Sandy Hook massacre and Alex Jones. Jones is free to say whatever and the state cannot make laws about what he can say or cannot say, but that doesn't stop private individuals from suing him and winning.
      - notahacker 4y ago
        to be fair, whilst it's true the distinction is hugely important to US concepts of free speech, it's also true it's not necessarily as material as it might seem. The state is composed of people, who have the right to sue their critics for alleged slander/libel (quite a lot of political speech involves making adversarial claims about people or corporate entities which could theoretically be ruled as malicious and factually untrue). Politicians suing other politicians or critics is unusual rather than not permitted in the US, but in other places like Singapore tort law is used consistently against prominent critics. It's possible for civil courts to be consistently biased in favour of politically-connected individuals and companies and for the consequences for criticism of them to be financially ruinous, and possible for actual criminal speech offences in other jurisdictions to have [lower] purely financial penalties, stronger presumptions in favour of the defendant and more scrupulously independent judicial processes.
- deleted 4y ago
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- dougSF70 4y ago
  I guess free speech that is proveably false is what is at stake here. Conspiracy theories are OK provided they are cannot be proven to be untrue.
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- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Ignoring that Jones is a garbage human and just focusing on the case: that isn’t protected free speech? No, while there are Constitutional limits (especially when the injured party is a public figure, see NY Times v. Sullivan), deliberate and often also reckless, harmful falsehood is not protected speech. > Does this set a precedent that anyone who spouts conspiracy theories about an event is targetable by those who suffered from that event? No, it just reinforces the existing precedent that people who deliberately or recklessly spread falsehoods about people can be sued by those injured by the falsehoods. Defamation isn't a new thing in law. And this isn't the first time that has bitten Alex Jones.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    > deliberate and often also reckless, harmful falsehood is not protected speech IANAL (I am not a lawyer; and IANAAJA—I am not an Alex Jones apologist), but I think deserves qualification. My understanding is that it’s not the falsehood which is restricted, it’s the damage caused by purveying the falsehood. If I’m not mistaken I can claim (anywhere under US jurisdiction, unless under oath or otherwise legally sworn to be truthful) that I have a cat (I don’t) without any legal risk to 1A protection whatsoever. Granted, that could raise other eyebrows which might gain legal force if I persisted, presumably around competency to care for myself (or my dog, who I assure you does exist).
    - scott_s 4y ago
      Publishing falsehoods about other people is not always protected speech. (Whether the other people are considered “public” or “private” changes the standards for deciding if the speech is protected.)
    - ncallaway 4y ago
      While you’re right, that damages are an important factor, it’s worth noting that these don’t have to be strictly limited to direct monetary damages. For example, Jones was defaulted on intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury’s compensatory damages were heavily weighted to IIED. So the damages can be abstract in some sense. But yes, generally defamation requires both material false statements of fact, and damages to a specific party.
- deleted 4y ago
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- RadixDLT 4y ago
  jones is a radio host thats why
- jcranmer 4y ago
  Defamation is not protected under the first amendment. Jones might have had a credible defense against the allegations of defamation (I haven't bothered to read the original complaint or any of the motions)--and defamation is notoriously hard for the plaintiffs to win in the US--but he was so uncooperative during discovery that he had a default judgement entered against him, meaning the only thing the jury had to decide was how much damages to award.
- enragedcacti 4y ago
  It doesn't mean anything for protected free speech because: 1) as other commenters have pointed out, this is for defamation against the parents for saying they were actors, sending "reporters" to harass them, etc. 2) He lost the defamation case by default for repeatedly refusing to comply with the court pre-trial. This trial was solely to determine damages. > On September 27, 2021, a district judge in Texas issued three default judgments against Jones, requiring him to pay all damages in two lawsuits. These rulings came after Jones repeatedly failed to hand over documents and evidence as ordered by the court, which the judge characterized as "flagrant bad faith and callous disregard for the responsibilities of discovery under the rules." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones#Sandy_Hook_school_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones#Sandy_Hook_school_s...
- slibhb 4y ago
  If Jones had stuck with "Sandy Hook was a false flag operation to take your guns," he would have been in the clear. The issue was his claim that the families whose children were murdered were "crisis actors".
  - luxuryballs 4y ago
    It’s also interesting because he could still be 100% correct and they actually be crisis actors and the whole nine yards but that doesn’t actually matter in the outcome of the case as far as I can tell.
    - danso 4y ago
      How would Jones be found liable for defamation if his claims were “100% correct”?
      - vkou 4y ago
        By not showing up to court, and by not complying with discovery. Which is what he did, and why there are two default judgements against him. It doesn't matter how right you are, or how stupid a lawsuit against you is - if you don't show up, you aren't likely to win.
        danso 4y ago
        Presumably he would’ve made a greater effort to show up to trial had he an airtight case for the truth.
      - luxuryballs 4y ago
        If it’s confirmed he was wrong then who would be even asking?
    - ncallaway 4y ago
      If he was 100% correct, it seems deeply unlikely that he would’ve dodged discovery the way he did.
- gizmo686 4y ago
  > Does this set a precedent that anyone who spouts conspiracy theories about an event is targetable by those who suffered from that event? Not in any legal sense. 1) Defamation is already well established in US law; no novel legal questions came up regarding the borders of protected speach in this case. 2) Precedents are never set at trials. In order for anything from this case to become precedent, it would need to be appealed. Even then, the precedent is limited to the jurisdiction of the appellate court. For this to result in a national precedent, it would need to make its way to the Supreme Court. 3) It was already ruled that Jones is liable, this decision is entirely about the amount. The ruling on liability was not based on the merits of the case, but instead on procedural concerns. Specifically, in the words of the court: > Defendants' dicovery conduct in this case has shown flagrant bad faith and callous disregard for the responsibilies of discovery under the rules. The Court finds Defendants' conduct is greatly aggravated by the consistent pattern of discovery abuse throughout the other Sandy Hook cases pending before this court. ... In sum, Defendants have been engaged in pervasis and persistent obstruction of the discovery process in general. The Court is also faced with Defendants' refusal to produce critical evidence. Defendants have shown a deliberate, contumacious, and unwarranted disregard for this Court's authority. Based on the record before it, this Court finds that Defendants' egregious discovery abuse justifies a presumption that its defenses lack merit. If there is any precedent to be set here, it would not be about the merits of the defamation case, but about the due process implications of the default judgement. Having said that, I found that to be an even bigger stretch then a hypothetical challenge on the merits, as Jones was given ample oppurtunity to participate but simply choose not to. https://infowarslawsuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/September-27-2021-Court-Order-on-Motion-for-Default-Judgement.pdf https://infowarslawsuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Septe...
  - sophacles 4y ago
    There may be due process concerns over refusing to follow the due process?
    - ncallaway 4y ago
      Jones was afforded due process. Due process requires you to participate in the _process_, which he refused to do repeatedly, for years. He can appeal, but the authority for a trial court to issue a default judgement is not new precedent but rather well established. It’s quite _rare_, but it’s happened before.
- chrononaut 4y ago
  > Does this set a precedent that anyone who spouts conspiracy theories about an event is targetable by those who suffered from that event? Interestingly, despite whether people believe free speech applies or not, the argument whether it could be considered free speech is actually irrelevant because Alex failed to test that defense by defaulting in the original trials by failing to turn over documents. As such, I can't imagine this would set a precedent. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/us/politics/alex-jones-sandy-hook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/us/politics/alex-jones-sa...
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- mypalmike 4y ago
  "All dog owners are part of a secret cabal that eats babies" is protected speech. "This specific dog owner, Judy Smith, is part of a secret cabal that eats babies" is libelous. ... or at potentially so. There are situations where it might not be found libelous.
hamiltonians 4y ago
I thought it was 5 million. I wonder if he will get out of it like has done in the past... a lot of money
- jcranmer 4y ago
  $4 million was the compensatory damages. $50 million is the punitive damages award.
  - evan_ 4y ago
    It's right in the article: > A jury in Texas ruled the radio host must pay $45.2m in punitive damages, in addition to $4.1m in compensatory damages they awarded a day earlier. A bunch of people on Twitter are saying that usually Texas will limit punitive damages to $750,000, but there's also some arguments for why that may not apply in this situation, so we'll get to watch this ping-pong around for years probably before anyone actually gets paid.
pessimizer 4y ago
I'm a supporter of Jones being able to spread whatever insane theories he wants whether or not he believes them himself, but he slandered the parents of dead children to the degree that some of the most insane and aggressive people in the world think that they're the agents of a world conspiracy with the intent to enslave the planet. $50 mil is a light judgement.
- remarkEon 4y ago
  Does anyone have a link to what he actually said? Now I’m curious. I hadn’t really been aware of this most recent Alex Jones shenanigan.
  - wyager 4y ago
    - Beltalowda 4y ago
      He claimed loudly and often for years; "at one point" makes it sound like an off-hand remark he made once or twice, but that's not really the case. He started backpeddling the minute people filled suit, as any true man of principle fighting the bad guys would do. For years he made factual claims about specific people that are demonstrably and provably untrue (i.e. that they're "crisis actors" who faked the lot), which does not fall under Free Speech, and did cause damages because several of Jones' followers did harass various survivors and family members with their bullshit.
      - wyager 4y ago
        graywh 4y ago
        the shooting was in 2012 and the lawsuits were filed in 2018
    - 4y ago
faizshah 4y ago
Anyone got a good law blog article for legal analysis on this case and the implications?
- fny 4y ago
  Here's an oldie but goodie: https://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2021/10/icymi-my-thoughts-on-the-alex-jones-defamation-cases-fall-2018-first-amendment-news.html https://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2021/10/icymi-my-t...
- spuz 4y ago
  Not blogs but two podcasts: Knowledge Fight for details on every awful thing Alex Jones and his crew have done over the years: https://knowledgefight.com/ https://knowledgefight.com/ Opening Arguments: more general law stuff but the last couple of episodes have covered how dumb Alex Jones'lawyers are in this case: https://openargs.com/oa619-ok-alex-joness-lawyers-really-dont-know-wtf-theyre-doing/ https://openargs.com/oa619-ok-alex-joness-lawyers-really-don...
apazzolini 4y ago
Let me know once he actually transfers a non-zero sum towards either the punitive or compensatory amounts.
- golergka 4y ago
  I'm a minor Russian political activist and a lot of my friends have had to fled the country in order to avoid persecution. This case and the manner in which the trial has been conducted is night and day difference to what Russian state does to it's citizens. I don't have the time or endurance to describe all the details to you, but just as a simple example — a regional parliament member has been recently sentenced to 7 years in prison for calling the current invasion of Ukraine a “war”.
  - spuz 4y ago
    What is it about this trial that stands out to you? I can tell you it's a very unusual example of a civil trial in the US so I'm not sure how it is supposed to compare with a criminal trial in Russia.
    - golergka 4y ago
      The fact that it is recorded and available to the wide audience. The fact that the prosecution actually had to present evidence. The fact that a wide audience actually cares about this trial. The fact that this trial is covered by the media. The fact that the whole trial takes more than half an hour. The fact that the defendant only risks his money but not his freedom.
      - somewhat_drunk 4y ago
        Yes, despite our rhetoric to the contrary, the rule of law is still quite strong in the USA. Thank fucking god.
      - giantrobot 4y ago
        Just a small correction, this is a civil case so there's no prosecution but instead a plaintiff. The workings of civil and criminal trials are similar though, the plaintiff has to make a case in court like a criminal prosecution would. Also in civil cases can result in criminal charges for things like contempt of court and perjury. Those are separate criminal proceedings but you can't just go into a civil trial and lie or otherwise break the law.
dragonwriter 4y ago
Actually, no, the jury verdict on punitive damages is $45.2 million, but that is certain to be reduced before Jones is ordered to pay (there seems to be some dispute over whether a portion of the compensatory damages award is economic or not, and depending on the answer on that, the cap under Texas statutory punitive damages caps would seem to be somewhere between $750k and $1m; even if the plaintiffs succeed in their plan to challenge the statutory caps as unconstitutional and the cap that applies is 10× compensatory, as they have suggested it should be, that would cap punitive at $41 million.) The $50m is adding the punitive and compensatory verdicts, neither of which are yet part of a judgement he has been ordered to pay. On the other hand, this case involves 2 parents. There is a larger case in Connecticut that doesn't face Texas punitive damages caps that he has also suffered default on and will face damages, as well as another Texas case.
- hindsightbias 4y ago
  Maybe Abbott could redo his tort philosophy if he can shake down the tree owner more.
- aronas 4y ago
  I was wondering myself about that so I did some sleuthing. This law professor explains that the Texas Constitution provides for "the right of trial by jury to be inviolate": https://twitter.com/heidilifeldman/status/1555628079036391425?s=21&t=fNlS9AELlvbBwHRJ2U5PAw https://twitter.com/heidilifeldman/status/155562807903639142... The whole Twitter thread has more details but the TLDR is because of the Texas constitution, and the large amount of money at stake, this will almost certainly end up being resolved on appeal in the Texas court system. In particular, to answer the question if the Texas legislature's cap may inhibit the jury's ability to determine the punitive award amount, as the state constitution says they may.
- gpm 4y ago
  The plaintiffs attorney has talked about this to reporters twice that I've seen Time 1: https://twitter.com/dansolomon/status/1555308565715451904 https://twitter.com/dansolomon/status/1555308565715451904 Time 2: https://twitter.com/averytravistv/status/1555692735906349057 https://twitter.com/averytravistv/status/1555692735906349057 In the first video (which was from before the jury announced what they though were appropriate punitive damages) says "10, 15 times" compensatory damages, $50m is below the upper end of that. The 10x you quote just seems to be the lower end of what he suggested the limit might be. The second video discusses what the statutory cap is (they think $750k per claim, $4.5m total)/that they don't think it's constitutional. Also that they don't think this will be directly litigated like it usually would, but be adjudicated by the bankruptcy court.
wnevets 4y ago
He got off easy considering he was profiting by ruining these people's lives
- vkou 4y ago
  This is just the first of three trials, and he's already been found guilty in one of the other two (By failing to comply with discovery.)
- Rackedup 4y ago
  - belltaco 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting_conspiracy_theories#Harassment_by_conspiracy_theorists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_s...
    - Pakdef 4y ago
      In that section of the Wikipedia article, his name is not mentioned once... what is your point?
      - belltaco 4y ago
        At a minimum, Infowars is mentioned in the last paragraph, which has this link as the source, in which Alex Jones is mentioned. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/politics/sandy-hook-hoaxer-arrest.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/politics/sandy-hook-ho...
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    He added a lot of undue trauma and made them the target of his rabid followers and they were constantly (and still are) inundated with harassing calls/emails/etc up to and including regular death threats, and some of Jones' unstable cult are fully capable of being mentally ill enough to do that. What would it be like to constantly be looking over your shoulder for someone ready to blow your head off
kayodelycaon 4y ago
It's a shame that while perjury during a civil trial is illegal, it's almost never prosecuted. His behavior was particularly egregious and I doubt this judgement will stop him from continuing to target everyone involved in the trial.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  I mean he targeted the judge during the trial, which is... not necessarily the smartest thing in the world.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    And the jury! https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1554855768666607617 https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1554855768666607617
- uptown 4y ago
  "The judge in the case, Maya Guerra Gamble, said she would entertain a motion to impose additional punishment against Mr. Jones and his lawyer for their courtroom conduct throughout the trial. Mr. Jones had to be frequently reminded by the judge to tell the truth while under oath." https://www.wsj.com/articles/alex-jones-ordered-to-pay-punitive-damages-to-sandy-hook-parents-11659736459 https://www.wsj.com/articles/alex-jones-ordered-to-pay-punit...
amelius 4y ago
What happened to his lawyer, who accidentally (?) sent his phone conversations to the opposing party?
- snoopy_telex 4y ago
  Nothing yet, but it’s a lot more then just the phone and it’s a huge mess. https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/08/04/its-a-tremendous-amount-of-information-the-details-about-alex-jones-phone/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/08/04/its-a-tremendous-amoun...
  - threeseed 4y ago
    Huge mess is an understatement. The phone conversations have also been handed over to the Jan 6 commission, FBI, DOJ etc.
    - hunterb123 4y ago
      You can't use leaked attorney/client information for investigations. The texts were from 2019 as well, not sure how they are relevant to J6. - 4A protects against unreasonable searches - 5A guarantees due process - 6A guarantees right to counsel Using leaked information from an attorney violates all three. -- EDIT -- > FireBeyond: 5A - due process - due process includes supplying all information. No it does not, you only have to supply subpoenaed information relevant to the trial. The lawyer leaked THE ENTIRE PHONE. Passing that leaked info to ANOTHER investigation is a bigger no no.
      - maximilianburke 4y ago
        It's not a leak if the lawyers fuck up. The plaintiffs asked the defendents if they wanted to claim privilege on the contents and the defendents refused, the ball is in play.
        hunterb123 4y ago
        First off, his "fuck up" was leaking it, second it's still protected under attorney client privilege if AJ didn't authorize it. Your attorney can't just leak (on purpose or accident) information you gave them and it be used against you. Just because you don't like X person don't allow the government to step on everyone's inalienable rights. If you went to trial for a traffic violation and your lawyer accidentally forwarded texts of you buying drugs, how would you feel being charged by the state for that crime? -- EDIT -- > gpm: The law is explicit in this case that the attorney client privilege is waived by the attorney not asserting it within 10 days Please cite what you are referring to.
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IronWolve 4y ago
The judge found him guilty of withholding evidence and did a summary judgement of guilty, and moved to the damages portion with a jury. Which is strange, skipping over the evidence trial and going straight to damages. They didnt say what the evidence being withheld was, and no video evidence against him. Thats what would have been interesting to see, the videos the case was based on. Banes Law did a good comment on the case @ https://files.catbox.moe/rsy84f.mp4 https://files.catbox.moe/rsy84f.mp4
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Which is strange, skipping over the trial and going straight to damages. Well, its unusual for a party with a business and sizable assets to protect to do the kinds of things that lead to default judgement, since that's pretty easy to avoid and potentially costly. But it's not unusual for a court to find default when parties steadfastly refuse to cooperate with court process, and Jones has had default rulings against him in two other Sandy Hook defamation cases. Which looks a lot like he was afraid that discovery would reveal something much worse than what was at issue in those cases.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    > Which looks a lot like he was afraid that discovery would reveal something much worse than what was at issue in those cases. And the great irony is that, because of his lawyer's mistake, he has lost the ability to keep from discovery an awful lot of things, so that revelation is likely to happen anyways.
- notahacker 4y ago
  It's not at all strange to skip over the evidence trial if one party consistently refuses to participate in the process of providing the evidence. Jones' lawyer accidentally sending the material he falsely claimed he didn't have after some months after he had been found guilty by default wasn't exculpatory...
- nneonneo 4y ago
  These are not summary judgments, they are default judgments. Alex Jones repeatedly failed to comply with court orders to produce evidence, which resulted in him being in default of the court. IANAL, but FRCP rule 37(b)(2)(A)(vi) very clearly indicates that a default judgment "against the disobedient party" is a permissible outcome of "[failing] to obey an order to provide or permit discovery". Essentially, Jones was found in contempt of court, and the judge slapped him with a default judgment. It's not strange at all.
lmeyerov 4y ago
"Bernard Pettingill told the court that records indicate Jones withdrew $62m for himself from his company in 2021 as his legal troubles grew." "The trial heard that Jones' business had earned about $800,000 in a single day selling diet supplements, gun paraphernalia and survivalist equipment." The court records here are great. I've never seen a good analysis on the economics of misinformation, especially the private industry disconnected from state/political actors. Think everyone from big social media platforms to small troll farms down to individual influencers. One powerful part of security defenses is making attacks economically infeasible, so understanding this is huge. Seeing the finances of an apex misinformation influencer like Alex Jones revealed is fascinating!
- russellbeattie 4y ago
  I've been sort of flabbergasted at the amount of money involved. Evil pays quite well, apparently.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    > Evil pays quite well, apparently Yes this is surprising considering … gestures broadly at all of human history..
    - lmeyerov 4y ago
      Maybe? A troll farm might employ 50 people... But at low wages. Trump & has social media director parceled out a lot of money to bot controllers, but it didn't seem like a lot to any individual. We know some boring influencers go big (ex: Kardashians) is a data point, but to see that Alex Jones is in this league is surprising. When I looked at some bigger anti-vaxxers, they seemed to be shilling courses that required a lot of work, so I wouldn't have guessed 8 figured in this world.
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Kukumber 4y ago
This kind of justice with special treatment only encourages people to believe in conspiracy theories I'm not sure that'll be effective, even though something had to be done
- ncallaway 4y ago
  > special treatment What special treatment?
xthrowawayxx 4y ago
lizardactivist 4y ago
Proven 4y ago
anonAndOn 4y ago
This PBS Frontline episode is a good primer on Alex's rise to infamy: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/united-states-of-conspiracy/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/united-states...
novantadue 4y ago
bumblebritches5 4y ago
victorclf 4y ago
Honest question. Isn't this off topic according to the guidelines? It's something that's being discussed everywhere on the news and, in my opinion, is more likely to cause outrage than satisfy any intellectual curiosity.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it.
martin1975 4y ago
The chance of AJ paying out any money on this will be slim to nil, IMHO. I have no idea how they even came up with that figure on those parents other than some lawyer thought it'd be cool to just ask for so much money because they figure AJ can afford it. If there are any real damages, they are certainly not in the stratospheric amounts the jury awarded....
- jen20 4y ago
  > If there are any real damages, they are certainly not in the stratospheric amounts the jury awarded “Punitive”.
kypro 4y ago
- LBJsPNS 4y ago
  Look up Stochastic Terrorism and get back to us.
- adventured 4y ago
  > And if so, what level of fame does someone have to have before it's legal to say what you think about them in public? Obviously subjective and would be determined in a court of law (public figure vs not a public figure). And besides, there are still limits to that regardless. If you publish a damaging lie about a public figure, they can sue you for very large amounts of money as they see fit. For example, if you're the NY Times and you print that a very famous actor is a pedo, and do so without enormous amounts of proof, prepare for an epic lawsuit that you will lose badly.
  - smegsicle 4y ago
    > For example, if you're the NY Times and you print that a very famous actor is a pedo, and do so without enormous amounts of proof, prepare for an epic lawsuit that you will lose badly. did this happen? i thought not being able to say whatever you wanted about public figures was a uk thing
- 58028641 4y ago
  Are you saying stochastic terrorism should be legal?
  - kypro 4y ago
    Maybe? I don't think Madonna did anything illegal when she suggested someone should blow up the White House, for example. Would that count as stochastic terrorism? I don't believe that someone should ever be held responsible for the actions of someone else. It seems strange to me that what I'm legally allowed to say is limited based on whether a lunatic is likely to do something stupid. Also was this even terrorism? The article says they just caused "emotional distress".
dukeofdoom 4y ago
- kemayo 4y ago
  For what it's worth, Jones did have to spend several years consistently abusing the discovery process (across multiple cases before this same judge) before it got to this point. It's not like he made one or two innocent mistakes and got slammed down for it. It escalated through a whole bunch of different penalties that didn't fix the misbehavior before this default judgement happened. If you're curious you can read the court order: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21074211-alex-jones-default-judgment-orders-texas https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21074211-alex-jones-...
jmyeet 4y ago
Let me give you a rundown of the lore on this saga because it's psychotic. He is most known for Info Wars. His various claims have been beyond bizarre, including psychic vampires. Alex Jones, for those who don't know, is a fringe conservative commentator long before we had terms like "alt-right". He shot to fame (in those circles) with his claims about the Sandy hook massacre saying it was faked and a government false flag operation. This unleashed his unhinged followers to harass the families who just had their child killed by a mass shooter. Many had to move, go into hiding, get therapy and so on. He became even more (in)famous because of his ties to Trump. Trump was on his show. Jones got deplatformed by Youtube in 2018. As has become clear, this didn't impact his earnings at all. What came out of this and other court proceedings is that Jones had revenue of $50-100 million per year (since at least 2012). At times in 2018 he was making $800,000/day. This was from selling supplements and merch as well as from Info Wars. He claimed to be going bankrupt because of this proceedings, to which someone anonymously donated $8 million in crypto just last month. The parents who were harassed because of his lies (he admitted they were lies in court) have individually sued him. This case is in Texas. Most are in Connecticut. This is just the first trial of many. What we've seen this week is just the penalty phase of the Texas trial. He's already been found guilty. During discovery for this trial, Jones had to produce any texts and emails relating to Sandy Hook. He claimed there were none. LLast week, his lawyers gave the plaintiff's attorney a complete copy of everything on his phone for a 2 year period. In legal proceedings this is called "inadvertent production" and there are mechanisms for rectifying this. Opposing counsel informed Jones's lawyers os this mistake and they did... nothing. No effort was made to correct the error, assert privilege or assert confidentiality (according to the order for discovery). A 10 day window passed that basically meant that Jones's lawyers didn't assert privilege so the plaintiff's attorneys is free to do with that whatever they want (minus some medical records that need to be destroyed). The January 6 committee had been trying to get just the metadata from Jones for their investigation and had thus far failed. They have now subpoenaed these records. This information will likely be available in all the subsequent trials. So you have Jones who failed to produce relevant documents, lied under oath about that discovery and (maybe) his lawyers making knowingly false statements. This last point is important. As an attorney you can't (technically) tell a lie. If you know your client is guilty you can't lie and say they're not. If they knew of Sandy Hook texts and emails existing, not being produced and made false statements to the court about that, they can face displinary action. But it doesn't end there. Including in this massive data dump there was found child porn material. Jones has, I believe, claimed this was "malware". While all this is going on, while proceedings are still active, Jones went on his show and called the judge a pedophile. He even published a photo of the judge's likeness burning, which you could reasonably view as a threat. Remember this guy has revenues north of $50 million per year. That's relevant because Texas law has various limits on punitive damages. That's why there was testimony about Jones's income and assets in the punitive damage phase (ie punitive damages capped to a certain nebulous percentage under Texas law). The net result? $4 million in compensatory damages and another $45 million in punitive damages. People are talking about how bankruptcy won't protect him from this but I'm not sure people realize just how much money this guy has made. This may well be the craziest legal thing I've ever seen.
dukeofdoom 4y ago
The Trial can be found here, if anyone wants to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hEYdiY_yGA&list=PLoW1SIeAWaWZZxZ7qyPnejzDsRptt71-_ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hEYdiY_yGA&list=PLoW1SIeAWa...
YourFriend87 4y ago
thepasswordis 4y ago
It's really weird reading some of these threads, because people say things with such authority which are demonstrably wrong. 1) Alex Jones was famous long before his Sandy Hook crap. 2) I don't know how you could call him "conservative" when, during the Bush years, he was a vocal anti war person who claimed that 9/11 was an inside job that was being used as a pretext for war. 3) Anti authoritarian, maybe? 4) Actually there are chemicals in the water that are disrupting hormones (turning the frogs "gay"): https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/endocrine/index.cfm https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/endocrine/ind... 5) He recanted the Sandy Hook claims as early as 2019. Alex Jones is absolutely nuts. There should be punishment for what he has done to these Sandy Hook families. That said: I hope people are just as happy when Kyle Rittenhouse receives a few 10s of millions of dollars from every news agency which slandered him (knowingly) as well. Otherwise this does feel like weaponizing the courts, which is concerning.
- divided 4y ago
  In my experience, news programs are very precise over using “alleged” or “suspected” when describing defendants until they’ve been proven guilty. And they quickly issue corrections when known facts change. Opinion programs, however, can be much more loose with their language. Tucker Carlson famously avoided repercussions from his speech with this defense. This isn’t a new thing. People still call OJ Simpson a murderer despite being declared not guilty in his criminal trial. People call George W Bush a murderer despite never even being charged with a crime. Colloquially, murderer can also be used to mean killer. Rittenhouse is a killer. I don’t see his lawsuits going anywhere, but I’m open to there being actual good evidence and argument for it. Maybe you can provide some great clips or articles with the slander, but otherwise I think the comparison with what Jones did is laughable.
sazz 4y ago
It's always a matter of perspective I think. Of course, now they will all dance again because they have finished off a "bad guy". Right-wing, talking nonsense, earning money - fits perfectly into the prey pattern. I watched "The Big Short" again yesterday. There was the saying that people are only ever interested in the next football match or some celebrity's rehab. You could also extend it to which "bad guy" is thrown to the lions. The main thing is that the mob gets its entertainment. The real bad guys - the ones who have brought suffering to hundreds of thousands of people - remain untouchable, of course.
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dukeofdoom 4y ago
Here's Alex responding to the verdict, and discussing it on air with his former lawyer. https://theinfowar.tv/watch?id=62eee4000e67d64cfac9d44f https://theinfowar.tv/watch?id=62eee4000e67d64cfac9d44f
budder 4y ago

247 points by vinni2 4y ago

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SteveMorin 4y ago

So glad for that verdict. Lies should be allowed to that degree.

ericmcer 4y ago

Ignoring that Jones is a garbage human and just focusing on the case: that isn’t protected free speech? I don’t know all the rules around when speech isn’t protected but the article doesn’t really cover why this wasn’t. Does this set a precedent that anyone who spouts conspiracy theories about an event is targetable by those who suffered from that event?

ajaimk 4y ago
The plaintiffs lawyer said is best, "Speech is free, but lies you have to pay for."
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- hunterb123 4y ago
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BooneJS 4y ago
Defamation, Slander, etc. None are protected. Free speech protects you from the Government, not your fellow citizens.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  The court is part of the government.
  - function_seven 4y ago
    The court oversaw the case. It did not bring it. Example: I specifically prohibit peanuts in my kitchen, because I serve meals to allergic children. You sneak peanuts into the kitchen. I sue you and win. Does this mean "Peanuts are illegal"? No. I have a civil action and we have a system of civil courts wherein these grievances can be aired and adjudicated.
  - bandyaboot 4y ago
    Leaving aside the absurd logic, it doesn’t matter. Slanderous speech is not protected speech…the government is allowed and expected to facilitate consequences.
  - decebalus1 4y ago
    That's a false equivalence. The court mediates the case between private parties. That's what civil court does. This is not a trial between 'the people' (the State) and Alex Jones. It's between some of the parents of the Sandy Hook massacre and Alex Jones. Jones is free to say whatever and the state cannot make laws about what he can say or cannot say, but that doesn't stop private individuals from suing him and winning.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      to be fair, whilst it's true the distinction is hugely important to US concepts of free speech, it's also true it's not necessarily as material as it might seem. The state is composed of people, who have the right to sue their critics for alleged slander/libel (quite a lot of political speech involves making adversarial claims about people or corporate entities which could theoretically be ruled as malicious and factually untrue). Politicians suing other politicians or critics is unusual rather than not permitted in the US, but in other places like Singapore tort law is used consistently against prominent critics. It's possible for civil courts to be consistently biased in favour of politically-connected individuals and companies and for the consequences for criticism of them to be financially ruinous, and possible for actual criminal speech offences in other jurisdictions to have [lower] purely financial penalties, stronger presumptions in favour of the defendant and more scrupulously independent judicial processes.
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dougSF70 4y ago
I guess free speech that is proveably false is what is at stake here. Conspiracy theories are OK provided they are cannot be proven to be untrue.
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dragonwriter 4y ago
> Ignoring that Jones is a garbage human and just focusing on the case: that isn’t protected free speech? No, while there are Constitutional limits (especially when the injured party is a public figure, see NY Times v. Sullivan), deliberate and often also reckless, harmful falsehood is not protected speech. > Does this set a precedent that anyone who spouts conspiracy theories about an event is targetable by those who suffered from that event? No, it just reinforces the existing precedent that people who deliberately or recklessly spread falsehoods about people can be sued by those injured by the falsehoods. Defamation isn't a new thing in law. And this isn't the first time that has bitten Alex Jones.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  > deliberate and often also reckless, harmful falsehood is not protected speech IANAL (I am not a lawyer; and IANAAJA—I am not an Alex Jones apologist), but I think deserves qualification. My understanding is that it’s not the falsehood which is restricted, it’s the damage caused by purveying the falsehood. If I’m not mistaken I can claim (anywhere under US jurisdiction, unless under oath or otherwise legally sworn to be truthful) that I have a cat (I don’t) without any legal risk to 1A protection whatsoever. Granted, that could raise other eyebrows which might gain legal force if I persisted, presumably around competency to care for myself (or my dog, who I assure you does exist).
  - scott_s 4y ago
    Publishing falsehoods about other people is not always protected speech. (Whether the other people are considered “public” or “private” changes the standards for deciding if the speech is protected.)
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    While you’re right, that damages are an important factor, it’s worth noting that these don’t have to be strictly limited to direct monetary damages. For example, Jones was defaulted on intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury’s compensatory damages were heavily weighted to IIED. So the damages can be abstract in some sense. But yes, generally defamation requires both material false statements of fact, and damages to a specific party.
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RadixDLT 4y ago
jones is a radio host thats why
jcranmer 4y ago
Defamation is not protected under the first amendment. Jones might have had a credible defense against the allegations of defamation (I haven't bothered to read the original complaint or any of the motions)--and defamation is notoriously hard for the plaintiffs to win in the US--but he was so uncooperative during discovery that he had a default judgement entered against him, meaning the only thing the jury had to decide was how much damages to award.
enragedcacti 4y ago
It doesn't mean anything for protected free speech because: 1) as other commenters have pointed out, this is for defamation against the parents for saying they were actors, sending "reporters" to harass them, etc. 2) He lost the defamation case by default for repeatedly refusing to comply with the court pre-trial. This trial was solely to determine damages. > On September 27, 2021, a district judge in Texas issued three default judgments against Jones, requiring him to pay all damages in two lawsuits. These rulings came after Jones repeatedly failed to hand over documents and evidence as ordered by the court, which the judge characterized as "flagrant bad faith and callous disregard for the responsibilities of discovery under the rules." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones#Sandy_Hook_school_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones#Sandy_Hook_school_s...
slibhb 4y ago
If Jones had stuck with "Sandy Hook was a false flag operation to take your guns," he would have been in the clear. The issue was his claim that the families whose children were murdered were "crisis actors".
- luxuryballs 4y ago
  It’s also interesting because he could still be 100% correct and they actually be crisis actors and the whole nine yards but that doesn’t actually matter in the outcome of the case as far as I can tell.
  - danso 4y ago
    How would Jones be found liable for defamation if his claims were “100% correct”?
    - vkou 4y ago
      By not showing up to court, and by not complying with discovery. Which is what he did, and why there are two default judgements against him. It doesn't matter how right you are, or how stupid a lawsuit against you is - if you don't show up, you aren't likely to win.
      - danso 4y ago
        Presumably he would’ve made a greater effort to show up to trial had he an airtight case for the truth.
    - luxuryballs 4y ago
      If it’s confirmed he was wrong then who would be even asking?
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    If he was 100% correct, it seems deeply unlikely that he would’ve dodged discovery the way he did.
gizmo686 4y ago
> Does this set a precedent that anyone who spouts conspiracy theories about an event is targetable by those who suffered from that event? Not in any legal sense. 1) Defamation is already well established in US law; no novel legal questions came up regarding the borders of protected speach in this case. 2) Precedents are never set at trials. In order for anything from this case to become precedent, it would need to be appealed. Even then, the precedent is limited to the jurisdiction of the appellate court. For this to result in a national precedent, it would need to make its way to the Supreme Court. 3) It was already ruled that Jones is liable, this decision is entirely about the amount. The ruling on liability was not based on the merits of the case, but instead on procedural concerns. Specifically, in the words of the court: > Defendants' dicovery conduct in this case has shown flagrant bad faith and callous disregard for the responsibilies of discovery under the rules. The Court finds Defendants' conduct is greatly aggravated by the consistent pattern of discovery abuse throughout the other Sandy Hook cases pending before this court. ... In sum, Defendants have been engaged in pervasis and persistent obstruction of the discovery process in general. The Court is also faced with Defendants' refusal to produce critical evidence. Defendants have shown a deliberate, contumacious, and unwarranted disregard for this Court's authority. Based on the record before it, this Court finds that Defendants' egregious discovery abuse justifies a presumption that its defenses lack merit. If there is any precedent to be set here, it would not be about the merits of the defamation case, but about the due process implications of the default judgement. Having said that, I found that to be an even bigger stretch then a hypothetical challenge on the merits, as Jones was given ample oppurtunity to participate but simply choose not to. https://infowarslawsuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/September-27-2021-Court-Order-on-Motion-for-Default-Judgement.pdf https://infowarslawsuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Septe...
- sophacles 4y ago
  There may be due process concerns over refusing to follow the due process?
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    Jones was afforded due process. Due process requires you to participate in the _process_, which he refused to do repeatedly, for years. He can appeal, but the authority for a trial court to issue a default judgement is not new precedent but rather well established. It’s quite _rare_, but it’s happened before.
chrononaut 4y ago
> Does this set a precedent that anyone who spouts conspiracy theories about an event is targetable by those who suffered from that event? Interestingly, despite whether people believe free speech applies or not, the argument whether it could be considered free speech is actually irrelevant because Alex failed to test that defense by defaulting in the original trials by failing to turn over documents. As such, I can't imagine this would set a precedent. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/us/politics/alex-jones-sandy-hook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/us/politics/alex-jones-sa...
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mypalmike 4y ago
"All dog owners are part of a secret cabal that eats babies" is protected speech. "This specific dog owner, Judy Smith, is part of a secret cabal that eats babies" is libelous. ... or at potentially so. There are situations where it might not be found libelous.

hamiltonians 4y ago

I thought it was 5 million. I wonder if he will get out of it like has done in the past... a lot of money

jcranmer 4y ago
$4 million was the compensatory damages. $50 million is the punitive damages award.
- evan_ 4y ago
  It's right in the article: > A jury in Texas ruled the radio host must pay $45.2m in punitive damages, in addition to $4.1m in compensatory damages they awarded a day earlier. A bunch of people on Twitter are saying that usually Texas will limit punitive damages to $750,000, but there's also some arguments for why that may not apply in this situation, so we'll get to watch this ping-pong around for years probably before anyone actually gets paid.

pessimizer 4y ago

I'm a supporter of Jones being able to spread whatever insane theories he wants whether or not he believes them himself, but he slandered the parents of dead children to the degree that some of the most insane and aggressive people in the world think that they're the agents of a world conspiracy with the intent to enslave the planet. $50 mil is a light judgement.

remarkEon 4y ago
Does anyone have a link to what he actually said? Now I’m curious. I hadn’t really been aware of this most recent Alex Jones shenanigan.
- wyager 4y ago
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    He claimed loudly and often for years; "at one point" makes it sound like an off-hand remark he made once or twice, but that's not really the case. He started backpeddling the minute people filled suit, as any true man of principle fighting the bad guys would do. For years he made factual claims about specific people that are demonstrably and provably untrue (i.e. that they're "crisis actors" who faked the lot), which does not fall under Free Speech, and did cause damages because several of Jones' followers did harass various survivors and family members with their bullshit.
    - wyager 4y ago
      - graywh 4y ago
        the shooting was in 2012 and the lawsuits were filed in 2018
  - 4y ago

faizshah 4y ago

Anyone got a good law blog article for legal analysis on this case and the implications?

fny 4y ago
Here's an oldie but goodie: https://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2021/10/icymi-my-thoughts-on-the-alex-jones-defamation-cases-fall-2018-first-amendment-news.html https://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2021/10/icymi-my-t...
spuz 4y ago
Not blogs but two podcasts: Knowledge Fight for details on every awful thing Alex Jones and his crew have done over the years: https://knowledgefight.com/ https://knowledgefight.com/ Opening Arguments: more general law stuff but the last couple of episodes have covered how dumb Alex Jones'lawyers are in this case: https://openargs.com/oa619-ok-alex-joness-lawyers-really-dont-know-wtf-theyre-doing/ https://openargs.com/oa619-ok-alex-joness-lawyers-really-don...

apazzolini 4y ago

Let me know once he actually transfers a non-zero sum towards either the punitive or compensatory amounts.

golergka 4y ago
I'm a minor Russian political activist and a lot of my friends have had to fled the country in order to avoid persecution. This case and the manner in which the trial has been conducted is night and day difference to what Russian state does to it's citizens. I don't have the time or endurance to describe all the details to you, but just as a simple example — a regional parliament member has been recently sentenced to 7 years in prison for calling the current invasion of Ukraine a “war”.
- spuz 4y ago
  What is it about this trial that stands out to you? I can tell you it's a very unusual example of a civil trial in the US so I'm not sure how it is supposed to compare with a criminal trial in Russia.
  - golergka 4y ago
    The fact that it is recorded and available to the wide audience. The fact that the prosecution actually had to present evidence. The fact that a wide audience actually cares about this trial. The fact that this trial is covered by the media. The fact that the whole trial takes more than half an hour. The fact that the defendant only risks his money but not his freedom.
    - somewhat_drunk 4y ago
      Yes, despite our rhetoric to the contrary, the rule of law is still quite strong in the USA. Thank fucking god.
    - giantrobot 4y ago
      Just a small correction, this is a civil case so there's no prosecution but instead a plaintiff. The workings of civil and criminal trials are similar though, the plaintiff has to make a case in court like a criminal prosecution would. Also in civil cases can result in criminal charges for things like contempt of court and perjury. Those are separate criminal proceedings but you can't just go into a civil trial and lie or otherwise break the law.

dragonwriter 4y ago

Actually, no, the jury verdict on punitive damages is $45.2 million, but that is certain to be reduced before Jones is ordered to pay (there seems to be some dispute over whether a portion of the compensatory damages award is economic or not, and depending on the answer on that, the cap under Texas statutory punitive damages caps would seem to be somewhere between $750k and $1m; even if the plaintiffs succeed in their plan to challenge the statutory caps as unconstitutional and the cap that applies is 10× compensatory, as they have suggested it should be, that would cap punitive at $41 million.) The $50m is adding the punitive and compensatory verdicts, neither of which are yet part of a judgement he has been ordered to pay. On the other hand, this case involves 2 parents. There is a larger case in Connecticut that doesn't face Texas punitive damages caps that he has also suffered default on and will face damages, as well as another Texas case.

hindsightbias 4y ago
Maybe Abbott could redo his tort philosophy if he can shake down the tree owner more.
aronas 4y ago
I was wondering myself about that so I did some sleuthing. This law professor explains that the Texas Constitution provides for "the right of trial by jury to be inviolate": https://twitter.com/heidilifeldman/status/1555628079036391425?s=21&t=fNlS9AELlvbBwHRJ2U5PAw https://twitter.com/heidilifeldman/status/155562807903639142... The whole Twitter thread has more details but the TLDR is because of the Texas constitution, and the large amount of money at stake, this will almost certainly end up being resolved on appeal in the Texas court system. In particular, to answer the question if the Texas legislature's cap may inhibit the jury's ability to determine the punitive award amount, as the state constitution says they may.
gpm 4y ago
The plaintiffs attorney has talked about this to reporters twice that I've seen Time 1: https://twitter.com/dansolomon/status/1555308565715451904 https://twitter.com/dansolomon/status/1555308565715451904 Time 2: https://twitter.com/averytravistv/status/1555692735906349057 https://twitter.com/averytravistv/status/1555692735906349057 In the first video (which was from before the jury announced what they though were appropriate punitive damages) says "10, 15 times" compensatory damages, $50m is below the upper end of that. The 10x you quote just seems to be the lower end of what he suggested the limit might be. The second video discusses what the statutory cap is (they think $750k per claim, $4.5m total)/that they don't think it's constitutional. Also that they don't think this will be directly litigated like it usually would, but be adjudicated by the bankruptcy court.

wnevets 4y ago

He got off easy considering he was profiting by ruining these people's lives

vkou 4y ago
This is just the first of three trials, and he's already been found guilty in one of the other two (By failing to comply with discovery.)
Rackedup 4y ago
- belltaco 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting_conspiracy_theories#Harassment_by_conspiracy_theorists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_s...
  - Pakdef 4y ago
    In that section of the Wikipedia article, his name is not mentioned once... what is your point?
    - belltaco 4y ago
      At a minimum, Infowars is mentioned in the last paragraph, which has this link as the source, in which Alex Jones is mentioned. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/politics/sandy-hook-hoaxer-arrest.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/politics/sandy-hook-ho...
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  He added a lot of undue trauma and made them the target of his rabid followers and they were constantly (and still are) inundated with harassing calls/emails/etc up to and including regular death threats, and some of Jones' unstable cult are fully capable of being mentally ill enough to do that. What would it be like to constantly be looking over your shoulder for someone ready to blow your head off

kayodelycaon 4y ago

It's a shame that while perjury during a civil trial is illegal, it's almost never prosecuted. His behavior was particularly egregious and I doubt this judgement will stop him from continuing to target everyone involved in the trial.

dragonwriter 4y ago
I mean he targeted the judge during the trial, which is... not necessarily the smartest thing in the world.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  And the jury! https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1554855768666607617 https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1554855768666607617
uptown 4y ago
"The judge in the case, Maya Guerra Gamble, said she would entertain a motion to impose additional punishment against Mr. Jones and his lawyer for their courtroom conduct throughout the trial. Mr. Jones had to be frequently reminded by the judge to tell the truth while under oath." https://www.wsj.com/articles/alex-jones-ordered-to-pay-punitive-damages-to-sandy-hook-parents-11659736459 https://www.wsj.com/articles/alex-jones-ordered-to-pay-punit...

amelius 4y ago

What happened to his lawyer, who accidentally (?) sent his phone conversations to the opposing party?

snoopy_telex 4y ago
Nothing yet, but it’s a lot more then just the phone and it’s a huge mess. https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/08/04/its-a-tremendous-amount-of-information-the-details-about-alex-jones-phone/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/08/04/its-a-tremendous-amoun...
- threeseed 4y ago
  Huge mess is an understatement. The phone conversations have also been handed over to the Jan 6 commission, FBI, DOJ etc.
  - hunterb123 4y ago
    You can't use leaked attorney/client information for investigations. The texts were from 2019 as well, not sure how they are relevant to J6. - 4A protects against unreasonable searches - 5A guarantees due process - 6A guarantees right to counsel Using leaked information from an attorney violates all three. -- EDIT -- > FireBeyond: 5A - due process - due process includes supplying all information. No it does not, you only have to supply subpoenaed information relevant to the trial. The lawyer leaked THE ENTIRE PHONE. Passing that leaked info to ANOTHER investigation is a bigger no no.
    - maximilianburke 4y ago
      It's not a leak if the lawyers fuck up. The plaintiffs asked the defendents if they wanted to claim privilege on the contents and the defendents refused, the ball is in play.
      - hunterb123 4y ago
        First off, his "fuck up" was leaking it, second it's still protected under attorney client privilege if AJ didn't authorize it. Your attorney can't just leak (on purpose or accident) information you gave them and it be used against you. Just because you don't like X person don't allow the government to step on everyone's inalienable rights. If you went to trial for a traffic violation and your lawyer accidentally forwarded texts of you buying drugs, how would you feel being charged by the state for that crime? -- EDIT -- > gpm: The law is explicit in this case that the attorney client privilege is waived by the attorney not asserting it within 10 days Please cite what you are referring to.

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IronWolve 4y ago

The judge found him guilty of withholding evidence and did a summary judgement of guilty, and moved to the damages portion with a jury. Which is strange, skipping over the evidence trial and going straight to damages. They didnt say what the evidence being withheld was, and no video evidence against him. Thats what would have been interesting to see, the videos the case was based on. Banes Law did a good comment on the case @ https://files.catbox.moe/rsy84f.mp4 https://files.catbox.moe/rsy84f.mp4

dragonwriter 4y ago
> Which is strange, skipping over the trial and going straight to damages. Well, its unusual for a party with a business and sizable assets to protect to do the kinds of things that lead to default judgement, since that's pretty easy to avoid and potentially costly. But it's not unusual for a court to find default when parties steadfastly refuse to cooperate with court process, and Jones has had default rulings against him in two other Sandy Hook defamation cases. Which looks a lot like he was afraid that discovery would reveal something much worse than what was at issue in those cases.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  > Which looks a lot like he was afraid that discovery would reveal something much worse than what was at issue in those cases. And the great irony is that, because of his lawyer's mistake, he has lost the ability to keep from discovery an awful lot of things, so that revelation is likely to happen anyways.
notahacker 4y ago
It's not at all strange to skip over the evidence trial if one party consistently refuses to participate in the process of providing the evidence. Jones' lawyer accidentally sending the material he falsely claimed he didn't have after some months after he had been found guilty by default wasn't exculpatory...
nneonneo 4y ago
These are not summary judgments, they are default judgments. Alex Jones repeatedly failed to comply with court orders to produce evidence, which resulted in him being in default of the court. IANAL, but FRCP rule 37(b)(2)(A)(vi) very clearly indicates that a default judgment "against the disobedient party" is a permissible outcome of "[failing] to obey an order to provide or permit discovery". Essentially, Jones was found in contempt of court, and the judge slapped him with a default judgment. It's not strange at all.

lmeyerov 4y ago

"Bernard Pettingill told the court that records indicate Jones withdrew $62m for himself from his company in 2021 as his legal troubles grew." "The trial heard that Jones' business had earned about $800,000 in a single day selling diet supplements, gun paraphernalia and survivalist equipment." The court records here are great. I've never seen a good analysis on the economics of misinformation, especially the private industry disconnected from state/political actors. Think everyone from big social media platforms to small troll farms down to individual influencers. One powerful part of security defenses is making attacks economically infeasible, so understanding this is huge. Seeing the finances of an apex misinformation influencer like Alex Jones revealed is fascinating!

russellbeattie 4y ago
I've been sort of flabbergasted at the amount of money involved. Evil pays quite well, apparently.
- paulcole 4y ago
  > Evil pays quite well, apparently Yes this is surprising considering … gestures broadly at all of human history..
  - lmeyerov 4y ago
    Maybe? A troll farm might employ 50 people... But at low wages. Trump & has social media director parceled out a lot of money to bot controllers, but it didn't seem like a lot to any individual. We know some boring influencers go big (ex: Kardashians) is a data point, but to see that Alex Jones is in this league is surprising. When I looked at some bigger anti-vaxxers, they seemed to be shilling courses that required a lot of work, so I wouldn't have guessed 8 figured in this world.

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Kukumber 4y ago

This kind of justice with special treatment only encourages people to believe in conspiracy theories I'm not sure that'll be effective, even though something had to be done

ncallaway 4y ago
> special treatment What special treatment?

xthrowawayxx 4y ago

lizardactivist 4y ago

Proven 4y ago

anonAndOn 4y ago

This PBS Frontline episode is a good primer on Alex's rise to infamy: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/united-states-of-conspiracy/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/united-states...

novantadue 4y ago

bumblebritches5 4y ago

victorclf 4y ago

Honest question. Isn't this off topic according to the guidelines? It's something that's being discussed everywhere on the news and, in my opinion, is more likely to cause outrage than satisfy any intellectual curiosity.

ceejayoz 4y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it.

martin1975 4y ago

The chance of AJ paying out any money on this will be slim to nil, IMHO. I have no idea how they even came up with that figure on those parents other than some lawyer thought it'd be cool to just ask for so much money because they figure AJ can afford it. If there are any real damages, they are certainly not in the stratospheric amounts the jury awarded....

jen20 4y ago
> If there are any real damages, they are certainly not in the stratospheric amounts the jury awarded “Punitive”.

kypro 4y ago

LBJsPNS 4y ago
Look up Stochastic Terrorism and get back to us.
adventured 4y ago
> And if so, what level of fame does someone have to have before it's legal to say what you think about them in public? Obviously subjective and would be determined in a court of law (public figure vs not a public figure). And besides, there are still limits to that regardless. If you publish a damaging lie about a public figure, they can sue you for very large amounts of money as they see fit. For example, if you're the NY Times and you print that a very famous actor is a pedo, and do so without enormous amounts of proof, prepare for an epic lawsuit that you will lose badly.
- smegsicle 4y ago
  > For example, if you're the NY Times and you print that a very famous actor is a pedo, and do so without enormous amounts of proof, prepare for an epic lawsuit that you will lose badly. did this happen? i thought not being able to say whatever you wanted about public figures was a uk thing
58028641 4y ago
Are you saying stochastic terrorism should be legal?
- kypro 4y ago
  Maybe? I don't think Madonna did anything illegal when she suggested someone should blow up the White House, for example. Would that count as stochastic terrorism? I don't believe that someone should ever be held responsible for the actions of someone else. It seems strange to me that what I'm legally allowed to say is limited based on whether a lunatic is likely to do something stupid. Also was this even terrorism? The article says they just caused "emotional distress".

dukeofdoom 4y ago

kemayo 4y ago
For what it's worth, Jones did have to spend several years consistently abusing the discovery process (across multiple cases before this same judge) before it got to this point. It's not like he made one or two innocent mistakes and got slammed down for it. It escalated through a whole bunch of different penalties that didn't fix the misbehavior before this default judgement happened. If you're curious you can read the court order: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21074211-alex-jones-default-judgment-orders-texas https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21074211-alex-jones-...

jmyeet 4y ago

Let me give you a rundown of the lore on this saga because it's psychotic. He is most known for Info Wars. His various claims have been beyond bizarre, including psychic vampires. Alex Jones, for those who don't know, is a fringe conservative commentator long before we had terms like "alt-right". He shot to fame (in those circles) with his claims about the Sandy hook massacre saying it was faked and a government false flag operation. This unleashed his unhinged followers to harass the families who just had their child killed by a mass shooter. Many had to move, go into hiding, get therapy and so on. He became even more (in)famous because of his ties to Trump. Trump was on his show. Jones got deplatformed by Youtube in 2018. As has become clear, this didn't impact his earnings at all. What came out of this and other court proceedings is that Jones had revenue of $50-100 million per year (since at least 2012). At times in 2018 he was making $800,000/day. This was from selling supplements and merch as well as from Info Wars. He claimed to be going bankrupt because of this proceedings, to which someone anonymously donated $8 million in crypto just last month. The parents who were harassed because of his lies (he admitted they were lies in court) have individually sued him. This case is in Texas. Most are in Connecticut. This is just the first trial of many. What we've seen this week is just the penalty phase of the Texas trial. He's already been found guilty. During discovery for this trial, Jones had to produce any texts and emails relating to Sandy Hook. He claimed there were none. LLast week, his lawyers gave the plaintiff's attorney a complete copy of everything on his phone for a 2 year period. In legal proceedings this is called "inadvertent production" and there are mechanisms for rectifying this. Opposing counsel informed Jones's lawyers os this mistake and they did... nothing. No effort was made to correct the error, assert privilege or assert confidentiality (according to the order for discovery). A 10 day window passed that basically meant that Jones's lawyers didn't assert privilege so the plaintiff's attorneys is free to do with that whatever they want (minus some medical records that need to be destroyed). The January 6 committee had been trying to get just the metadata from Jones for their investigation and had thus far failed. They have now subpoenaed these records. This information will likely be available in all the subsequent trials. So you have Jones who failed to produce relevant documents, lied under oath about that discovery and (maybe) his lawyers making knowingly false statements. This last point is important. As an attorney you can't (technically) tell a lie. If you know your client is guilty you can't lie and say they're not. If they knew of Sandy Hook texts and emails existing, not being produced and made false statements to the court about that, they can face displinary action. But it doesn't end there. Including in this massive data dump there was found child porn material. Jones has, I believe, claimed this was "malware". While all this is going on, while proceedings are still active, Jones went on his show and called the judge a pedophile. He even published a photo of the judge's likeness burning, which you could reasonably view as a threat. Remember this guy has revenues north of $50 million per year. That's relevant because Texas law has various limits on punitive damages. That's why there was testimony about Jones's income and assets in the punitive damage phase (ie punitive damages capped to a certain nebulous percentage under Texas law). The net result? $4 million in compensatory damages and another $45 million in punitive damages. People are talking about how bankruptcy won't protect him from this but I'm not sure people realize just how much money this guy has made. This may well be the craziest legal thing I've ever seen.

dukeofdoom 4y ago

The Trial can be found here, if anyone wants to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hEYdiY_yGA&list=PLoW1SIeAWaWZZxZ7qyPnejzDsRptt71-_ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hEYdiY_yGA&list=PLoW1SIeAWa...

YourFriend87 4y ago

thepasswordis 4y ago

It's really weird reading some of these threads, because people say things with such authority which are demonstrably wrong. 1) Alex Jones was famous long before his Sandy Hook crap. 2) I don't know how you could call him "conservative" when, during the Bush years, he was a vocal anti war person who claimed that 9/11 was an inside job that was being used as a pretext for war. 3) Anti authoritarian, maybe? 4) Actually there are chemicals in the water that are disrupting hormones (turning the frogs "gay"): https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/endocrine/index.cfm https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/endocrine/ind... 5) He recanted the Sandy Hook claims as early as 2019. Alex Jones is absolutely nuts. There should be punishment for what he has done to these Sandy Hook families. That said: I hope people are just as happy when Kyle Rittenhouse receives a few 10s of millions of dollars from every news agency which slandered him (knowingly) as well. Otherwise this does feel like weaponizing the courts, which is concerning.

divided 4y ago
In my experience, news programs are very precise over using “alleged” or “suspected” when describing defendants until they’ve been proven guilty. And they quickly issue corrections when known facts change. Opinion programs, however, can be much more loose with their language. Tucker Carlson famously avoided repercussions from his speech with this defense. This isn’t a new thing. People still call OJ Simpson a murderer despite being declared not guilty in his criminal trial. People call George W Bush a murderer despite never even being charged with a crime. Colloquially, murderer can also be used to mean killer. Rittenhouse is a killer. I don’t see his lawsuits going anywhere, but I’m open to there being actual good evidence and argument for it. Maybe you can provide some great clips or articles with the slander, but otherwise I think the comparison with what Jones did is laughable.

sazz 4y ago

It's always a matter of perspective I think. Of course, now they will all dance again because they have finished off a "bad guy". Right-wing, talking nonsense, earning money - fits perfectly into the prey pattern. I watched "The Big Short" again yesterday. There was the saying that people are only ever interested in the next football match or some celebrity's rehab. You could also extend it to which "bad guy" is thrown to the lions. The main thing is that the mob gets its entertainment. The real bad guys - the ones who have brought suffering to hundreds of thousands of people - remain untouchable, of course.

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dukeofdoom 4y ago

Here's Alex responding to the verdict, and discussing it on air with his former lawyer. https://theinfowar.tv/watch?id=62eee4000e67d64cfac9d44f https://theinfowar.tv/watch?id=62eee4000e67d64cfac9d44f

budder 4y ago