WATERBURY, Conn — A Connecticut judge on Friday rejected Infowars host Alex Jones' bid to avoid escalating daily fines for missing a deposition in a lawsuit by relatives of some victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, who sued the conspiracy theorist for saying the massacre was a hoax.
Judge Barbara Bellis in Waterbury kept in place her ruling that fines Jones $25,000 per weekday, beginning Friday, and increasing by $25,000 each weekday until he appears at a deposition.
Jones had asked Bellis to put her ruling on hold while he appeals the fines to the state Supreme Court. His lawyers said he plans to attend a deposition in Connecticut on April 11. If he does not appear until then, his fines would total $525,000.
Jones said he did not attend a deposition scheduled last week in Austin, Texas, where he lives, because he was too ill to attend. Bellis said there was not enough evidence Jones was too ill to appear at the deposition.
Twenty first graders and six educators were killed in the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
The plaintiffs said they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones’ followers because of the hoax conspiracy promoted on his show.
On Tuesday, the families quickly rejected a settlement offer from Jones for $120,000 each. Lawyers for the families said in court filings that it was a “transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs and the memory of their loved ones lost at Sandy Hook.”
Travis Pittman contributed to this report.
