Bumped again for this deliciously tasty headline from the NY Times (probably paywalled): " Testify or Pay Up, Judge Tells Alex Jones in Sandy Hook Suit"
Sub-headline: “A Connecticut judge rejected the Infowars conspiracy theorist’s claim that he was too ill to sit for a deposition, and set a schedule of hefty fines.”
Some choice quotes:
A Connecticut judge, exasperated by the Infowars broadcaster Alex Jones’s “bad faith” failure to sit for a deposition in a lawsuit brought by the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, ruled on Wednesday that he would be subject to escalating daily fines for future delays.
The judge, Barbara Bellis of Connecticut Superior Court, found Mr. Jones in contempt and ordered that he be fined $25,000 for the first weekday he fails to appear for testimony, beginning on Friday. For every day thereafter that he does not appear, the daily fine will increase by $25,000. She also ordered that he be deposed in Connecticut, rather than in his home of Austin, Texas.
Over nearly four years of litigation, Mr. Jones repeatedly delayed proceedings, violated court rules and failed to submit business records and testimony ordered by the courts. Late last year, judges in Texas and Connecticut ruled him liable by default, granting the families a sweeping victory. In trials slated to begin next month in Texas, juries will determine how much Mr. Jones must pay the families in damages. The Connecticut case is the last scheduled trial, set to begin on Sept. 1.
And there’s this infuriating hilarity:
With the trials looming, Mr. Jones continues to stonewall. Judge Bellis last week rejected his claim that a medical emergency prevented him from sitting for a two-day deposition in Austin. The day before his court-ordered deposition, Mr. Jones was broadcasting from his Infowars studio while his lawyer, unknowing, told the judge he was under a doctor’s care at home.