Texas judge delays Jones defamation awards trial
A Texas judge postponed a defamation awards trial that was supposed to begin Monday to determine how much money Alex Jones will pay the parents of a slain Sandy Hook boy while three of Jones’ companies seek bankruptcy protection in federal court.
“As soon as I do get a remand (from bankruptcy court), I will be resetting this trial,” said Travis County District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble during a Wednesday morning hearing in Austin, Texas — the headquarters of Jones’ Infowars broadcast and marketing platform. “We are going to go to trial as soon as I possibly can.”
Guerra Gamble’s decision comes one day after a Superior Court judge in Connecticut postponed a trial planned for August to determine how much money Jones will pay an FBI agent and eight families who lost loved ones in the Sandy Hook shooting, stemming from a defamation suit Jones lost to them last year.
The ruling by the Texas judge means the parents of Jesse Lewis will have to await the outcome of the bankruptcy process. The parents of a second boy slain in the Sandy Hook shooting who also won a defamation case against Jones last year in Texas and were scheduled to have their awards trial next will also have to wait.
Neil Heslin, who along with Scarlett Lewis was preparing for a Monday trial declined to comment about the delay after the judge’s ruling.
Jones’ legal and financial troubles have been in the national headlines for a month as his first defamation awards trial approached in Texas. His effort to settle with 19 people in the Connecticut and Texas defamation cases for $120,000 each was rejected. At the same time, he was sued in Texas by four Sandy Hook parents who accused him of transferring “millions of dollars from his fortune” to shield assets from them at the damages trials.
On Monday, Guerra Gamble ordered Jones and his companies to pay $1 million in legal fees to the parents of two slain Sandy Hook children and a Norwalk native falsely accused of being the shooter in a Florida high school massacre.
Jones’ made public statements recently in Bridgeport that he no longer believes the massacre of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 was “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely fake with actors.”
On Wednesday in Austin, Guerra Gamble heard first from the Sandy Hook parents’ attorney Mark Bankston, who argued the defamation awards trial should begin on Monday regardless of the bankruptcy filings because the effort by Jones’ attorney to remove the case to federal court was “abnormal” and “dishonest.”
“As things stand right now … I have a feeling when we walk out of this courtroom they are going to come out with another stunt,” Bankston said during a livestreamed conference. “They have already shown an extraordinary willingness to go beyond what is honest and forthright to make this scheme work.”
Bankston was referring to three Jones-controlled businesses that filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday — an action that normally would have delayed the pretrial defamation award cases in Texas and Connecticut, except that Jones himself and another business he controls, Free Speech Systems, were not part of the bankruptcy filing and remained defendants.
On Monday, Jones’ attorneys filed a separate motion to remove the remaining cases from state court until the bankruptcy process was complete. That prompted Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis to suspend pretrial preparations in Waterbury.
On Wednesday, Jones’ Houston attorney Andino Reynal said Guerra Gamble should to the same as Bellis, arguing that the disposition of the Jones-controlled businesses in bankruptcy could have an effect on the ability of Jones and Free Speech Systems to pay defamation damages awarded by a jury.
“Our position is that (your) jurisdiction disappeared at some point yesterday,” Reynal told the judge.
After a 30-minute break, Guerra Gamble agreed.
As a result, all eyes now turn to Texas Southern Bankruptcy Court in Victoria, where the first hearing is planned for Friday.
For some of the Sandy Hook families involved in the Jones defamation cases, it is not the first time a lawsuit has been delayed by bankruptcy.
In 2020, Remington filed for bankruptcy protection after nine Sandy Hook families won a string of pretrial victories in their wrongful death lawsuit. After Remington was sold off to competitors, its insurance carriers settled with the families for $73 million.