Alex Jones has been found guilty by default in all four defamation cases brought by the families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting tragedy.
A judge in Connecticut issued rulings in a fourth defamation lawsuit brought against the Infowars conspiracy theorist on Tuesday after he failed to produce evidence to support false claims the 2012 mass shooting was a hoax.
The ruling means all four lawsuits brought by the families of 10 Sandy Hook victims in Texas and Connecticut have won defamation cases against Jones.
Twenty six people, including 20 school children, died in the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
For years Jones claimed the shooting was a “false flag” operation engineered by the government to bring about stricter gun control laws.
Jones claimed on his radio show and website that the event was “completely fake with actors,” “synthetic” and a “giant hoax” by opponents of the Second Amendment and mainstream media.
The families of Sandy Hook victims were subjected to years of in-person and online harassment over the claims.
They successfully argued that Jones made money from spreading the bogus conspiracy theories through his Infowars channel.
On Monday Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis issued a default ruling, saying that Jones’ lawyers had shown a “callous disregard of their obligation” to turn over financial and web analytics data, the Hartford Courant reported.
Attorney Chris Mattei, who represents the victims’ families, told the Hartford Courant: “Mr Jones is very used to saying whatever he wants to say from the comfort of his own studio, but what I think this case has shown is that when he is forced to defend his conduct in a court of law and comply with court orders, that it’s a very different ballgame.
“The fact that the court was left with no choice but to default him shows just how unwilling Mr Jones was to have his conduct exposed to the light of day in front of a jury.”
Three separate defamation lawsuits brought against Jones in Texas, where Infowars is based, were ruled on in October.
Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa filed a defamation suit in 2018 against Jones for his lies surrounding the school shooting in Connecticut, in which they lost their six-year-old son Noah.
Scarlett Lewis, who lost her six-year-old son Jesse in the shooting, also filed a case against Jones.
Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble ordered a default judgement against Jones, finding him and his outlet liable for damages after he repeatedly failed to hand over documents for discovery.
Juries will now decide how much Jones has to pay the families in damages and court costs.
While Mr Jones keeps his financial circumstances largely hidden, he is thought to be worth around $5m, largely gained through the sale of supplements on his Infowars network.
