In FQ so hoping for factual answer not a discussion of how happy you’d be if this happened…
In case like this (After Alex Jones’ lawyers accidentally leak years of emails, Infowars financial documents are revealed in court) where a defendant in a civil trial is caught absolutely bang to rights, with documentary evidence, lying under oath. How likely is it a separate criminal prosecution will be launched for perjury? Or is it more likely they will just jack up the eventual damages in the civil trial? Would the fact he’s a defendant not a plaintiff make it less likely? (As he didn’t lie under oath to take money from someone under false pretenses)
And in the specifics of this case would the fact that the phone contents can be entered into evidence in the civil trial mean they are automatically eligible to used as evidence in a potential criminal trial?
One can only hope that he ends up in prison. A New York Times article (gift link) about the trial in Austin said
Mr. Jones is also under scrutiny for his role in planning events around the attack on the Capitol, so the texts could be of interest to the House Jan. 6 committee.
“We fully intend on cooperating with law-enforcement and U.S. government officials interested in seeing these materials,” Mr. Bankston said.
So perhaps he might be charged with something related to the January 6 assault?
This requires too much speculation and legal opinions for FQ. Moving to IMHO.
That said, this is not a general opinion thread about Alex Jones. The OP is looking for speculation based on legal facts as to whether or not Alex Jones is likely to go to prison. Please limit opinions to what is in the OP (is Alex Jones likely to go to prison, how likely a separate trial for perjury, etc).
This is off-topic for this particular thread.
There are several other threads about Alex Jones in P&E and the BBQ Pit. Feel free to have a more general discussion in one of those threads.
IANA lawyer, but currently there’s a high probability of Jones spending the next few years tied up in an assortment of civil trials trying not to have to pay out vast sums of money to the Sandy Hook parents and repeatedly losing. Odds of him ending up in prison are presently low to middling but he seems determined to increase those odds, and not in his favor.
I suspect that the perjury charges from the current civil court won’t go anywhere if the jury awards huge punitive damages (as they seem likely to do), but they do mean that in the (six? eight?) civil cases yet to come, the plaintiff’s counsels and judges will be keeping a much sharper eye on Jones’ claims under oath, particularly if they have access to the text data from the current case. If Jones perjures himself again (as he’s dumb enough to do) the odds of a criminal case go up.
Jones could also potentially face charges if the bankruptcy court decides that he’s committed fraud in his filing, given that he admitted on air that he was filing to try to avoid paying out on the civil cases. No idea of how likely that is, but it could theoretically happen.
And of course he could get roped into the January 6 DOJ investigation, and God only knows where that might lead. Although if that happens, my money’s on “Alex Jones squealing like Ned Beatty in Deliverance” when interviewed by the DoJ.
I’m sorry. You’re right. However, the only reason to assert the Fifth before the Committee is because you’re expecting DOJ to file a case against you. Speculation on my part, but I’ll bet there’s a subpoena coming from DOJ within days.
Wrong thread, I think. We’re discussing his criminal exposure in this one. You’re talking about the civil verdict the jury just rendered with respect to punitive damages in the Texas case.
If we want to get into the Alex Jones spirit, we should be posting in the baseball thread the real story that the case was dismissed and that the Sandy Hook “parents” are being arrested tomorrow along with Biden and the cannibalistic pedophiles.
I posted this before, but people almost never go to prison for perjury in a civil trial. This is an old cite but still relevant because I don’t think it has changed in the intervening years.
The best answer is that civil perjury is certainly illegal, but rarely prosecuted.
Whatever the number, it is a tiny fraction of the lies–even the obvious lies–told under oath in the tens of thousands of depositions taken every year in federal civil suits. So who does get prosecuted? One case involved an expert witness who lied about where he received his medical degrees. Another concerned a man paid $20,000 to lie in the deposition. These lies were part of efforts to corrupt the judicial system itself.
Don’t expect it to happen, it is extremely rare. Not that it doesn’t happen, but I doubt it will happen here. It seems like this is the sort of perjury that happens all the time and doesn’t get prosecuted, it’s not particularly egregious.
On the other hand, as you said if there is incriminating evidence in any of the data that is now in the hands of the recent case’s prosecuting attorney, that could lead to a conviction. The Jan 6 Commitee has requested that data, and I expect they’d pass anything incriminating on to the proper authorities if it was discovered. (This is speculation on my part though.)
Thanks I think that answers my main question (Unfortunately )
Though is the evidence in this trial automatically fair game for other trials and criminal investigations? Given the facts of this case (where if I understand it his lawyer was told “hey did you mean to send this? Is it privileged?” given a certain amount of time to respond, and didn’t so its fair game now and not privileged.) mean it could still be considered privileged in other cases?
The attorney-client privilege may be lost by waiver, whether intentional or unintentional. Once the client grants a waiver, it’s usually permanent. Clients can waive the privilege by failing to promptly object to a discovery request seeking privileged communications or where a client has consented to a waiver.
I believe that’s why the Jan 6 Committee is going to the Sandy Hook family’s lawyer to get the info, not Jones’s lawyer (or Jones), because they no longer have a say in the matter.
Yeah. Since he is such an asshole, and does not like to show up in court, maybe a conviction and a 90 day suspended sentence, or more likely, yet another fine. But not an Orange jumpsuit.
OTOH, if he tries those tricks in a Criminal court, he might end up with a contempt charge and a set of orange PJs for a while.
As noted, prosecution for perjury in a civil trial is unusual, and I’ll bet it’s even more unusual when it’s a defendant who lost the case. In this case the alleged perjury did not affect the verdict, so I’m guessing the prosecutor’s office has better things to do.
)