Government

Alex Jones, Get Out Your Checkbook!

And. Find. Out.

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Alex Jones of InfoWars (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Alex Jones’s courtroom strategy of energetically thrusting two middle fingers toward the trial judge seems to finally be bearing fruit. And by “fruit” we mean a contempt finding and escalating monetary sanctions that will put him in six-digit territory by next week.

After refusing to comply with discovery for three straight years, Jones defaulted in the case brought by surviving family members of Sandy Hook shooting victims, whom Jones had referred to as “crisis actors.” The only remaining issue is how big a check Jones and his company are going to cut to make the plaintiffs whole after they suffered years of harassment by Jones’s deranged audience.

Connecticut trial Judge Barbara Bellis convened a hearing yesterday to discuss a motion for contempt after Jones failed to show up for scheduled depositions on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. The court was not satisfied with a “willfully inadequate letter” supplied by one Dr. Marble attesting that Jones was far too ill to be deposed, particularly after the plaintiffs turned on Jones’s program and demonstrated that he was actually broadcasting from his Texas studio during the scheduled deposition he was too sick to attend. And indeed, the day before, when he was supposedly being diagnosed with his mystery ailment, Jones was on air with Dr. Marble calling for the execution of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

So Her Honor was already incandescent with rage before the hearing started. And it doesn’t seem to have gotten better as the day progressed.

“When you say uncontroverted record, you’re not suggesting to the Court that the Court had to accept the evidence that was submitted as opposed to evaluating the evidence to determine if it was credible, genuine, reasonable, and the like?” she demanded, when Jones’s attorney Cameron Atkinson pointed to the letters from Epstein’s Mother Dr. Marble and a subsequent offering as “proof” that his client was seriously ill. His client’s on-air admission that he’d been suffering from a sinus infection that miraculously cleared the second the plaintiffs’ lawyers left the state of Texas probably didn’t help either.

Nor was the court impressed with Atkinson’s protest that Jones could not possibly be deposed at the plaintiffs’ attorney’s office in Connecticut because “we understand that plaintiffs’ counsel enforces a fairly strict COVID protocol at their offices, including the wearing of masks, et cetera, something  that Mr. Jones is not willing to do, and we would ask that to be taken into consideration as well.”

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“I actually thought that you — whoever was arguing for Mr. Jones today, would come in and make some kind of offer, you know, to the Court. We don’t want sanctions, we’re willing to sit for a deposition on Monday or Friday,” the judge noted, observing that, despite the defendant’s constant protests that he would never try to duck deposition, he hadn’t yet agreed to present himself for questioning.

In response, Atkinson agreed as how his client would be willing to be deposed the week of April 11, “if the court orders it,” location TBD. No earlier date would be possible, since Jones is scheduled to sit for deposition in the suit brought by a different set of Sandy Hook plaintiffs in Texas, where the vagaries of interstate arrest warrants do not come into play. (He’s defaulted in that one, too.)

This was not really what the plaintiffs had in mind.

“It seems to us that Mr. Jones has made a deliberate decision that he would rather suffer the contempt of the Court than expose himself to deposition,” attorney Chris Mattei told the court. “So what we’ve tried to do in fashioning the relief we’ve requested is change that calculus to make it clear to Mr. Jones that the penalties that will accrue to him as a result of his further non-compliance are not worth it and that he should sit for deposition in order to avoid them.”

The court agreed, making several substantial changes to the “calculus” in an effort to discourage further “non-compliance.”

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Mr. Jones is in contempt of court, and in order to purge the contempt, it is incumbent upon him, if he so desires, to provide, on two occasions, a minimum of 24 hours notice of his attendance at a weekday deposition at the office of plaintiffs’ counsel in Bridgeport, and to actually sit for the depositions. Plaintiffs’ counsel are expected to conduct the depositions provided that the minimum of 24 hours notice has been given to all parties. As such, the order stands. The court has imposed a $25,000 per-weekday fine commencing on Friday April 1, 2022, increasing by $25,000 per-weekday until Mr. Jones sits for two days of depositions, and the fine is stayed on the days that Mr. Jones attends his deposition.

So if Alex Jones has to cough up $25,000 on Friday, $50,000 on Monday, $75,000, Tuesday, etc, he’s looking at $375,000 within a week.

And if he doesn’t show up in Connecticut and sit for his two days of deposition by April 15, “the Court finds that the preclusion of evidence, that is, preventing Mr. Jones from offering evidence which would include calling witnesses, cross examining witnesses, and the like, and adverse inferences, that is, the establishment of certain facts adverse to the Jones defendants, would be an order as a remedy for non-compliance[.]”

Which is some substantially altered calculus. But Jones has been remarkably resistant to math so far, so let’s see if he ponies up.

Lafferty v. Jones [Docket]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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