InfoWars host Alex Jones was ordered by the court to answer questions under oath last Wednesday and Thursday in a defamation lawsuit filed against him on behalf of families of victims killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
But he didn’t show up.
His attorneys say that multiple medical conditions, including a sinus blockage, kept Jones from participating.
In a court document filed Monday, Jones’ attorneys asked Judge Barbara Bellis to ignore a request from the families to hold Jones in contempt of court for his absence.
“What has been lost in the Plaintiffs’ rush to obtain this Court’s orders and sanctions against Mr. Jones is that Mr. Jones has never sought to indefinitely postpone his deposition or to escape it entirely. Instead, he has sought to have it postponed until his doctors clear him to sit for it,” reads a court filing signed by Jones' attorneys Norm Pattis and Cameron Atkinson.
Jones was sued in 2018 by victims’ families after saying that everything about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed six educators and 20 students was “fake.”
Attorneys for the families say they’ve been unable to depose Jones since an initial interview was scheduled in the fall of 2021. After they didn’t get a chance to speak with him last week, they asked the judge to “coerce” his testimony by holding him in contempt of court. They’d like him to be jailed until he sits for a deposition.
“He is so afraid of being deposed in this case that he refused to attend his own deposition, even after the Court ordered him to do so. His invented excuses for his absence only confirm his contempt,” reads a court filing signed Alinor C. Sterling, an attorney for the families.
The families’ attorneys have cast doubt on Jones’ not being able to testify due to his health. They point to him continuing to work from a studio outside his home while being under doctor’s orders to remain home in lieu of sitting for a deposition.
The defense confirmed that Jones wasn’t home last Tuesday while his attorneys argued against him leaving home for a deposition the following day. In the filing requesting that Bellis hold Jones in contempt of court, the plaintiffs say Jones also worked in his studio the day after he missed Thursday’s deposition.
“Mr. Jones was back on the air from his studio, explaining to his audience that the emergent medical condition that supposedly manifested just days before his deposition turned out to be “a blockage in his sinus,” attorneys for the families wrote in the filings.
Jones’ attorneys confirmed that Jones had a sinus blockage in the latest court filing. They say he has that and more.
“That Mr. Jones has chosen to reveal one of his medical conditions – a sinus blockage – on his television show has no bearing on his other medical conditions, which he is well within his privacy rights not to reveal, and the Plaintiffs’ attempt to cast aspersions on his doctors’ recommendations is reckless in the extreme,” Pattis and Atkinson wrote in Monday’s court filing.
Bellis requested filings on the matter from both parties in the lawsuit in advance of a Wednesday, March 30, hearing. Bellis has had her own issues with Jones’ actions of late. In the same decision ordering Jones to show up last Thursday unless he had to be hospitalized, she said Jones “cannot unilaterally decide to continue to engage in his broadcasts, but refuse to participate in a deposition.”
Jones has already lost the defamation case. In November, Bellis ruled that because of the way that Jones’ legal team handled the discovery process, it could no longer fight claims of defamation. What’s still to be decided is how much Jones will have to pay in damages.
Connecticut Public reached out to Jones’ attorneys asking if Jones will sit for a deposition once cleared. They didn’t immediately return comment.
Still, Jones’ defense team said in filings that he’s sought to postpone the deposition until he’s cleared by a doctor to sit for it.
“Mr. Jones has no desire or reason to evade a deposition in this case,” the defense wrote Monday.
