Alex Jones to allow company behind Infowars to be part of Connecticut defamation trial in September – theday.com

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has agreed to allow the company behind his far-right Infowars website to participate in his Connecticut defamation case, meaning both will be on trial in Waterbury in September to decide what they should pay in damages for their false claims that the Sandy Hook school shootings were a hoax.

Jones wholly owned Free Speech Systems told a Texas bankruptcy court Monday that it no longer opposes the Connecticut trial, effectively removing itself from bankruptcy court protection. The company, with Jones, will be exposed millions of dollars in damages to relatives of Sandy Hook victims at the trial, tentatively scheduled for Sept. 13.

Jones threw the Connecticut trial schedule into turmoil when he put Free Speech Systems into federal bankruptcy on July 29, a filing that indefinitely stopped all related litigation in state courts.

Jones allowed a Texas defamation suit to proceed and earlier this month the jury awarded about $49 million to a Sandy Hook family who sued there.

In Connecticut, where the bankruptcy filing came as jury selection was to begin, Judge Barbara Bellis ordered the damages trial to proceed against Jones alone, who did not file for bankruptcy. Some legal analysts suspect Jones decision to allow Free Speech Systems to participate in the Connecticut case is strategic, in that it will permit him to make a stronger defense.

As of Monday night, six jurors and one alternate had been selected for the Waterbury trial. Bellis has instructed the lawyers to agree on three more alternate jurors. Free Speech Systems, in the agreement reached in Texas bankruptcy court, accepted the jurors so far chosen.

Twenty-six first graders and educators were shot to death at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown on Dec. 14, 2012 when 20 year old Adam Lanza blasted his way into the locked school with a semi-automatic rifle and began executing people. He killed himself as police approached.

Family members of murdered children and educators, as well as an FBI agent who was among the first responders, sued Jones for defamation and emotional distress after he asserted repeatedly on his influential radio broadcasts and Internet sites that the massacre was a hoax created to increase support for gun control.

Jones has since acknowledged that the shootings occurred.

The September 13 damages trial in Waterbury involves the consolidation of three suits filed in Connecticut state court against Jones and various of his companies. The suits have been bitterly litigated for four years.

Late last year Bellis took the extraordinary step of issuing a default order against Jones in the Connecticut cases for failing to comply with her orders to disclose information to the victim families effectively settling the suit in favor of the families and leaving only the question of damages against him unresolved. A judge in Texas issued the same ruling in response to Jones apparent efforts to stall the case in that state.

Under the agreement reached in Texas bankruptcy court, Connecticut lawyer Norm Pattis will continue to defend Jones and Free Speech Systems, with assistance as a non-appearing counsel from one of Jones Texas lawyers, F. Andino Reynal.

Both Pattis and Reynal are the subjects of a disciplinary inquiry begun early this month by Bellis after it was learned that highly confidential medical and psychiatric records of the family members suing in Connecticut were improperly disclosed to the legal team representing parents who sued in Texas. The records were protected by state and federal privacy laws, as well as a detailed order by Bellis.

The inquiry has revealed so far that Pattis provided a digital version of the material to one of Jones Texas bankruptcy lawyers, who then handed the material to Reynal. Reynal testified that his secretary gave the material to lawyers for the family suing in Texas, mistaking it for a collection of text messages extracted from Jones telephone.

Lawyers following the case have said the disciplinary inquiry could provide Jones with another opportunity to delay the Connecticut proceedings if he suspects Pattis defense may be affected by the presiding judges investigation.

The bankruptcy court ordered Free Speech Systems to pay Pattis $100,000 a month for September and October, and possibly more if the defense stretches into November or beyond. The Connecticut victims agreed to the fee schedule.

The agreement in Texas bankruptcy court also requires Free Speech Systems to make its representatives available as witness for both Jones and the families suing him.

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Alex Jones to allow company behind Infowars to be part of Connecticut defamation trial in September - theday.com