- Alex Jones is in court again to determine how much he should pay the families of Sandy Hook victims.
- On the trial's first day, the judge sanctioned Jones for refusing to turn over discovery material.
InfoWars host Alex Jones has been punished by a judge for not turning over documents to Sandy Hook families' lawyers — again.
The right-wing conspiracy theorist was sanctioned by a Connecticut judge on Tuesday at the opening of his defamation damages trial in the state for not turning over enough web data about his coverage of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.
Jones is on trial in Connecticut to determine how much he has to pay the families of several victims of the 2012 massacre over his repeated bogus claims that the mass shooting was a "hoax."
The families' lawyers wanted to draw a connection between the Google Analytics data and merchandise sales. Jones turned over data up through June 2019, but didn't reveal data from the last three years.
Judge Barbara Bellis called Jones' failure to fulfill his discovery obligations "stunningly cavalier" and sanctioned him. She also banned his lawyers from arguing that he didn't profit from his coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting.
"This stunningly cavalier attitude with respect to their discovery obligations is what led to the default in the first place," Bellis said in Connecticut Superior Court.
The judge added, "The defendants have consistently engaged in dilatory and obstructive discovery practices from the inception of these cases, right through to the trial."
Jones was nowhere to be seen at the courthouse in Waterbury, Connecticut, on Tuesday. The courtroom was packed with a mix of victims' family members and the media. About 20 family members entered together 15 minutes before the trial.
About an hour before the trial kicked off, a lone female protester held up a sign outside: "Alex Jones karma is a bitch," it read.
Last month, a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay nearly $50 million to the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, one of the 26 killed in the school massacre, after they sued him for defamation for falsely claiming the shooting was a hoax.
Bellis ruled in 2021 that Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, were liable for defaming 15 plaintiffs. The plaintiffs are suing Jones for defamation, alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The plaintiffs in the Connecticut trial were part of three separate lawsuits that have been consolidated and include relatives of several Sandy Hook shooting victims and one FBI agent.
The plaintiffs say they have been harassed in person and received death threats and abusive comments online from Jones's followers because of his claims that the shooting was a hoax, according to the Associated Press.
During his initial defamation trial in Texas, Jones admitted that the Sandy Hook shooting was 100% real and apologized for hurting the feeling of the victims' families, but he later reneged on his apology in an interview and said "I don't apologize anymore. I'm done."