Families of victims of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School have filed a defamation lawsuit against Infowars radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has repeatedly claimed the massacre was a hoax.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Bridgeport Superior Court in Connecticut by the families of six victims and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting at the Newtown, Conn., school on Dec. 14, 2012.
The complaint said Jones has accused the Sandy Hook relatives of faking the deaths of their loved ones and argued the Infowars radio host has deliberately pushed false narratives about the shooting, the victims, and their families as part of a ploy through which he has benefited substantially.
Jones has also claimed the children killed in the shooting are alive, the lawsuit stated.
“While the nation recoiled at the terrible reality of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Alex Jones saw an opportunity,” said Josh Koskoff, an attorney who is representing the families. “He went on a sustained attack that has lasted for years, accusing shattered family members of being actors, stating as fact that the shooting itself was a hoax and inciting others to act on these malicious lies. He knew his claims were false but he made them anyway to further a simple but pathetic goal: to make money by tearing away at the families’ pain. This lawsuit seeks to hold Alex Jones and his financial network accountable for those disgraceful actions.”
The families said in their lawsuit that due to Jones’ claims, they have been “forced to endure malicious and cruel abuse at the hands of ruthless and unscrupulous people.”
Twenty children and six adults were killed in the shooting.
In addition to Jones, the lawsuit named as defendants Infowars, its parent company, and two men, Wolfgang Halbig and Cory Sklanka, who have claimed Sandy Hook was a hoax. Halbig has appeared as a guest on Jones’ show.
The families are seeking monetary damages in excess of $15,000.
The lawsuit filed in Connecticut is the second defamation lawsuit filed against Jones by Sandy Hook parents. In April, the parents of two children killed in the massacre sued Jones in Travis County District Court in Austin for claiming they participated in a conspiracy.
