Aug. 3 (UPI) — Infowars owner and host Alex Jones admitted Wednesday that the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut did occur.
“Especially since I’ve met the parents. It’s 100% real,” Jones said Wednesday.
Jones made the admission during the civil trial that will determine how much the conspiracy theorist owes in defamation damages to the parents of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting.
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, one of the 26 first- grade students and teachers killed in the shooting, are seeking $150 million in damages after Jones repeatedly described the shooting as a “giant hoax” involving government-employed “crisis actors.”
Until Wednesday, he had steadfastly claimed that the event was a staged government conspiracy meant to take away Americans’ guns.
During cross-examination, the attorney representing Heslin and Lewis told the courtroom that Jones’ lawyer sent him an “entire digital copy” of Jones’ cellphone “with every text message you’ve sent for the past two years” over a week ago.
The phone also contained financial information pertaining to Jones’ media company that he didn’t turn over during deposition.
“That is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have text messages about Sandy Hook,” attorney Mark Bankston told Jones, who was testifying in his own defense. Jones was the only witness called by his defense team.
Following the news, Rolling Stone reported the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol is getting ready to look into Jones’s text messages and emails that became public Wednesday.
After multiple delays, the Jones jury trial got underway in late July at the Travis County Courthouse in Austin, Texas.
During a break in opening arguments, Jones arrived in the courtroom wearing a piece of silver tape over his mouth that read “Save the 1st” in reference to the First Amendment.
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