Attorneys in the defamation trial for Infowars founder Alex Jones agreed Friday not to return him to the stand following heated testimony on Thursday regarding his peddling of false claims about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Jones, 48, was slated to testify on Friday but decided against doing so. Instead, he held a brief press conference and then left the courthouse vicinity before the Connecticut trial resumed Friday at 11:30 a.m. ET.
After Jones left the courtroom, his attorney Norm Pattis told Judge Barbara Bellis that he would waive his right to cross-examine the Infowars founder. Rather, Pattis will call on him as a defense witness next week after an agreement with the attorney for the plaintiffs, Chris Mattei.
Pattis said he believed the decision would help “streamline” the proceeding and “lower the temperature level and help the jury focus on what it needs to decide,” following Jones’s heated court testimony on Thursday.
LAWYER FOR SANDY HOOK FAMILIES CHALLENGES ALEX JONES’S ‘KANGAROO COURT’ CLAIMS
“Everyone enjoying the show trial?” #AlexJones arrives today.
“They can put on all their fake evidence….lies…and then I can’t even respond…”#SandyHook pic.twitter.com/DDN23bo9QU
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) September 23, 2022
As part of the trial’s rules, Jones is not permitted to discuss topics ranging from free speech rights and whether he profited from shows that discussed the Sandy Hook shooting to the number of times in which he discussed the shooting on his previous shows.
But Jones alarmed Bellis when Mattei informed the judge that Jones was encouraging jurors to do their own research on the case outside the courtroom, which would violate the rules of the court. However, a court clerk later said the jurors did not witness Jones’s comments during the news conference outside the courthouse.
“Well the main reason I’m not testifying today with my defense lawyer is because there’s no need,” Jones said Friday morning, repeating his complaints about the limits the judge placed on what he can say during the trial.
“Basically it would be like a boxing match where one guy has his arms tied behind his back and a gag in his mouth,” Jones added. “So this is totally rigged. It’s an absolute total fraud.” Jones has previously referred to the trial as a “kangaroo court” and the judge as a “tyrant.”
Bellis issued a default ruling in November 2021 that Jones is liable for his false claims, meaning the six-member jury is only tasked with determining how much Jones and Free Speech Systems, a parent company of the Infowars media platform, should pay to the families for defaming them and causing emotional distress. The plaintiffs include eight families tied to the 2012 shooting.
Pattis has stated that the damages should be limited and said the shooting victims’ family members exaggerated the harm Jones’s false claims have caused them.
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Last month, a Texas jury decided Jones should pay $45.2 million in punitive damages to two parents of a victim of the Sandy Hook shooting over his promotion of false claims that the massacre was a hoax.
But Jones could owe less than 10% of the amount ordered in the Texas trial because the state’s law caps punitive damages at $750,000 per parent.
