Lawyers for Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist who claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, hope to dismiss accusations of slander against him on Wednesday according to Texas court documents, Reuters reported.
[Also read: Facebook says it’s close to shutting down InfoWars’ pages]
Parents of two of the shooting victims filed the lawsuits in April against Jones and his website, Infowars, a media platform dedicated to conspiracy theories. Jones theorized that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged in order to promote left-wing policies, such as gun control, and that parents of the victims were liars and frauds.
According to the New York Times, the parents of Noah Ponzer have had to relocate seven times in the past five years due to death threats and online harassment. The lawsuits against Jones were filed in April and seek at least $1 million in damages.
In addition to the Texas lawsuit, several families have also filed a defamation lawsuit against Jones in Connecticut, which Jones also plans to dismiss, according to The Hill.
Twenty children and six adults were killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, which took place in Newton, Conn. It is among the five deadliest mass shootings carried out by a single gunman in U.S. history.
