![]() ![]() This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. When this trial concludes, Jones faces two more legal actions.Ĭopyright © 2022 NPR. Closing arguments are expected today with a verdict by week's end. ![]() He says he's just an opinionated pundit trying to expose government lies under First Amendment protections. The right-wing broadcaster has called the proceeding a kangaroo court. On Tuesday, the clearly irritated state district judge admonished Alex Jones not to tell the jury he was bankrupt, not to use the courtroom as a performance and to spit out his gum. The parents are seeking at least a hundred and fifty million dollars from Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, which last week filed for bankruptcy. Their lawyer said the threats against Lewis' parents have continued in Austin, and they have to travel with a large security detail. The parents said fringe followers of InfoWars who heard the conspiracy story have stalked them, made death threats, shot up their home and car and given them panic attacks. His wife, Scarlett Lewis, said directly to Jones, it seems so incredible to me that we have to do this, that we have to implore you, to punish you, to get you to stop lying. To which Neil Heslin, father of slain 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, had this to say when he took the stand earlier in the day - I can't even describe the last 9 1/2 years, the living hell that I and others have had to endure because of the recklessness and negligence of Alex Jones. JONES: Trying to actually find out what happened.īURNETT: Instead of finding out what really happened, his program invented a narrative that the 2012 massacre of 20 first graders and six school staffers at a Connecticut elementary school was staged by the federal government as a pretext to crack down on guns, and there were no dead children, just actors. I didn't even really know who you were until a couple years ago when all this started up.īURNETT: Jones then launched into a defense of his InfoWars TV show and podcast, saying the internet had a lot of questions and that he was just. I never even said your name until this case came to court. JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: It was not a full apology or a retraction, but it was the first time Alex Jones has expressed any contrition for the impact his broadcast lies have had on Sandy Hook parents.ĪLEX JONES: I never intentionally tried to hurt you. The parents and Jones addressed each other for the first time in open court late yesterday, as NPR's John Burnett reports. A jury is deciding how much Jones should pay for inflicting grief and anguish on the family of a young boy who was killed in the Sandy Hook mass school shooting. In an Austin, Texas, courtroom, the defamation trial of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has turned emotional. ![]()
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