WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Alex Jones claimed on his show in 2014 that the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting was a hoax, according to jury documents on Thursday. Website viewership skyrocketed.
Jones and his company Free Speech Systems responded to the December 2012 massacre in Newtown, where 8 of 20 first-graders and 6 educators were shot and relatives were killed. A lawsuit brought by an FBI agent is on trial in Connecticut. They say Jones has caused them emotional and psychological harm, and they have been threatened and harassed by Jones’ followers.
Jones has already been found guilty of spreading the myth that there was no shooting, and a six-person jury in Waterbury will decide how much he and his company should pay plaintiffs in damages. The exam will start on Tuesday and will last for a month.
Family attorney Christopher Mattei said on the Infowars website on September 24, 2014 that no one died in Sandy Hook and Jones. showed an internal Infowars document detailing the surge in An article on his program the next day.
The family lawsuit alleges that Jones sold lies to increase his viewership, sell nutritional supplements, clothing and other merchandise on Infowars’ website and sell hawks on his web shows. Jones and guests on his show said the shooting was staged with crisis managers as part of gun control efforts.
The discussion of revenue and web viewership took place on Thursday, and on the second day, Mattei questioned Brittany Paz, a Connecticut attorney Jones hired to testify about his company’s operations.
Daily revenue for the Infowars online store increased from $48,000 on September 24th to more than $230,000 on September 25th, according to the document. Meanwhile, the Infowars website’s total user sessions increased from about 543,000 on September 23rd to about 1 million on September 23rd. 24, documents showed.
Paz was also asked about an Infowars video showing Jones and guests using lies and misinformation to claim the massacre was staged. I acknowledged that I am not.
In the video, Jones says the school shooting was “a huge hoax” and “the biggest hoax since the $3 bill.” He said there were aerial photos of the student actors running in circles in and out of the school.The actual images were of a nearby fire station where people had gathered after the shooting.He also told CNN claimed to have used a green screen in a fake interview with people from Sandy Hook.
Mr Mattey later showed an email from a company executive showing internal conflict within Infowars about continuing to debate conspiracy theories about the school shooting.
Infowars editor Paul Watson wrote, “We’re losing our lives because of Sandy Hook,” putting the company’s reputation and audience at risk by harassing parents of dead children I asked why.
Last month, a Texas jury awarded nearly $50 million to the parents of one of the murdered Sandy Hook children in a similar lawsuit against Jones and his company.
Paz has admitted that Infowars broadcast false information. She also admitted that Jones had failed to check the eligibility of guests who had appeared on his show multiple times, including being a school security expert who investigated the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. Infowars received an email questioning the guest’s credibility.
Paz believes Jones and his company have made at least $100 million in the decade since the massacre, and Jones testified that he is now worth millions. The website traffic data report presented at also shows that by 2016 his shows were aired on 150 affiliated radio stations, and Infowars’ website received 40 million monthly page views.
Mattei shows Paz an Infowars internal email between employees sharing Google Analytics data. Paz previously testified that Infowars employees had told her they did not regularly use Google Analytics to track website browsing data. I asked if it was her testimony that she doesn’t use Google Analytics on a regular basis.
“I don’t know at this point,” she said.
Jones now says he believes the shooting took place, but claims his comments are protected by his right to free speech.
Families say the emotional and psychological damage to them has been severe and lasting. Relatives say they were subjected to harassment on social media, death threats, video recordings from strangers, and surreal pain of being told to fake their loss.
Jones’ attorney, Norman Pattis, said in his opening statement on Tuesday that any damages should be minimized and that the family overstated the damage they suffered.
On Thursday’s Infowars show, Jones again called the procedure in Connecticut a “show trial.”
The judge “must carry out this scam now,” he said. can’t believe it.'”
The full AP article on the Alex Jones trial can be found at https://apnews.com/hub/alex-jones.
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