Alex Jones at the Travis County Courthouse in Austin, Texas on August 3, 2022. Photo / AP
Alex Jones at the Travis County Courthouse in Austin, Texas on August 3, 2022. Photo / AP
For 90 searing minutes in a courtroom, a Sandy Hook mother brought conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones face-to-face with the havoc she said his lies about the mass shooting that killed her son had wrought on her family and on the national discourse.
"Truth — truth is so vital to ourworld. Truth is what we base our reality on, and we have to agree on that to have a civil society," Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse, 6, was among the 20 first graders and six educators killed in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, told Jones from the witness stand on Tuesday (Wednesday NZT).
Jones has questioned the events at Sandy Hook, but "you know that's not true", she said, staring at him while he fidgeted at the defence table. "When you say those things, there's a fringe of society that believe you that are actually dangerous."
It was a remarkable moment in the long-running legal battles between the Sandy Hook families and the Infowars fabulist, who for years broadcast lies that the shooting was a government hoax and that the families were "actors" in the plot. Jones, who has regularly berated the families on the air, has rarely appeared in the same room as them, even as he has been found liable in a series of defamation suits brought by the families of 10 victims.
Scarlett Lewis, mother of 6-year-old Sandy Hook shooting victim Jesse Lewis, testifies against Alex Jones on August 2, 2022 in Austin, Texas. Photo / AP
The trial involving Lewis and Neil Heslin, Jesse's father, is the first of three in which juries will decide how much Jones must pay for defaming the families. Jones has mostly avoided showing up in court. But through an accident of scheduling as he prepared to testify in his defence, he wound up face-to-face with Lewis, who addressed him personally throughout her testimony.
"Alex, I want you to hear this," Lewis said, fixing him in her gaze. "We're more polarised than ever as a country. Some of that is because of you." Jones nervously shook his head.
The Sandy Hook families have suffered years of torment and threats after Jones, beginning hours after the shooting, deemed Sandy Hook a "false flag" operation planned by the government as a pretext for confiscating Americans' firearms.
Business records released during the proceedings indicate Jones has reaped more than US$50 million (NZ$79.7m) annually selling diet supplements, gun paraphernalia, body armour and doomsday prepper gear by hawking conspiracy theories to millions listening to his radio and online show. Jesse's parents are requesting US$150m in compensatory damages. More important than money, Lewis said Tuesday, "I hope to accomplish an era of truth."
At the heart of the trial, which is set to conclude this week, is a June 2017 episode of NBC's Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly, in which Kelly profiled Jones. In the broadcast, Heslin protested Jones' denial of the shooting. He recalled his last moments with Jesse, saying, "I held my son with a bullet hole through his head." Afterward, Jones and a sidekick, Owen Shroyer, implied on Infowars that Heslin was lying.
A photograph of Jesse Lewis at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, Connecticut on April 13, 2015. Photo / AP
Heslin testified first Tuesday. In a low voice and pausing frequently to weep, he described his son as an energetic boy with a booming voice, who liked to team up with his father to collect scrap metal and recyclables that he returned for spending money. When the gunman entered Jesse's classroom, he shouted "Run!" during a pause in the shooting. Nine children ran, and survived.
Heslin said conspiracy theorists had tried to contact him by phone, confronted and shoved him on the street. Someone fired a gun into his house and car. This spring, he said, someone drove past his house and shouted "Alex Jones!" and he heard the sound of gunfire.
Glancing at Jones' empty seat at the defence table, Heslin called his absence "a cowardly act".
"The statements and the remarks made by both Infowars and Alex Jones have tarnished Jesse's legacy," he added.
In this July 11, 2013 file photo, Scarlett Lewis hugs Lynn McDonnell, left, mother of Sandy Hook victim Grace McDonnell, as Neil Heslin, right, father of Jesse Lewis, watches on. Photo / AP
While Heslin was testifying, Jones was across town broadcasting his show. After watching Heslin's testimony on a courtroom YouTube feed, he called the grieving father "slow" and "manipulated by some very bad people".
An hour later, Jones turned up in court flanked by his spouse and a cadre of bodyguards. Lewis, who had seen the broadcast maligning Heslin during a break in her testimony, was waiting for him.
"I've had a hard time finding words today. It makes me feel astounded, in a bad way," she told Jones. "Horrific. Horrific. Horrific."
Jones testified after Lewis, saying that he had repeatedly tried to apologise.
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County District Court admonished him later for lying under oath in parts of his testimony. Jones had told the jury he is "bankrupt", even though his bankruptcy filing has yet to be adjudicated and the families' lawyers say it is a tactic to avoid upcoming trials. He also claimed that he had complied with court orders in the defamation suits, when in fact his years-long failure to submit documents and testimony was the reason he lost all of them.
"You're under oath. That means things must actually be true when you say them," Guerra Gamble told Jones. He tried to interject, but she stopped him: "Don't talk."
After the judge left the courtroom, Jones approached Heslin and Lewis and shook their hands. Their lawyers hustled them away, and Jones exploded in anger, claiming the parents were being "controlled".
