InfoWars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones asked a Texas court on Wednesday to dismiss a defamation case against him and his website, which was filed by the parents of a child killed in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. He also wants the parents, Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, to pay him more than $100,000 for his legal costs.
Since the mass shooting in Connecticut — in which Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adults — Jones has used InfoWars to call the whole thing an elaborate hoax and the families of the victims crisis actors. He's also suggested that "a political cover-up took place by left-wing forces seeking to take advantage of the shooting to promote gun control,"Reuters reported.
Jones specifically accused De La Rosa of participating in a fake CNN interview. She told The New York Times that in the five years since her son, Noah Pozner, was killed in the school shooting, her family has faced death threats and online harassment. They've ever been forced to relocate seven times.
"I would love to go see my son’s grave and I don’t get to do that, but we made the right decision," De La Rosa said, adding that any time they move, people on the internet publish their address "with the speed of light."
"They have their own community, and they have the ear of some very powerful people," she said.
Sandy Hook families are suing Alex Jones. This is what he said about the shooting. https://t.co/JIwRYmrsmmpic.twitter.com/ddgDfMttjq
— Media Matters (@mmfa) April 17, 2018
In 2015, Jones hosted a call with another conspiracy theorist, who, at one point, threatened Pozner. "Mr. Jones then showed his audience my personal information and maps to addresses associated with my family," Pozner said in an affidavit. A year later, an "InfoWars devotee" was arrested for repeatedly threatening Posner. A condition of her parole was that she stop watching InfoWars.
According to the NYT, Jones is trying to dismiss Pozner's and De La Rosa's lawsuit under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, which "protects citizens’ right to free speech against plaintiffs who aim to silence them through costly litigation."
He and his lawyers claim the suit is an effort "to silence those who openly oppose their very public ‘herculean’ efforts to ban the sale of certain weapons, ammunition and accessories, to pass new laws relating to gun registration and to limit free speech," according to court filings.
De La Rosa and Pozner's defamation lawsuit is just one of three that have been filed against Jones by other families of Sandy Hook victims.
One suit alleges that Jones and his colleagues "persistently perpetuated a monstrous, unspeakable lie: that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged, and that the families who lost loved ones that day are actors who faked their relatives’ deaths."
Just last week, Facebook suspended Jones' personal page for 30 days, citing "bullying" and "hate speech." However, the InfoWars Facebook page is still live.
