New filing
civilinquiry.jud.ct.gov

SECOND SUPPLEMENTAL MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
For more than five years, Alex Jones and his companies profited from broadcasting devastating lies about the plaintiffs in this case. Jones and his Infowars “contributors” told an audience of millions that the Sandy Hook shooting was “a synthetic completely fake with actors,” a “hologram,” an “illusion” and “the fakest thing since the three-dollar bill,” “staged” in order to take away their volatile audience’s guns, and that the Sandy Hook families were “paid …totally disingenuous” “crisis actors” who faked their loved ones’ deaths. Jones urged the audience to “investigate.”1 This was not journalism. It was marketing; Jones used these lies to sell his Infowars-brand products for profit.2 The plaintiffs in these consolidated actions brought suit to hold Jones and his companies accountable for their actions. They ask that a jury hear the evidence of what Jones and his companies did, and why, and then decide the case. In response, the Jones defendants have stalled and stonewalled. Plainly their goal is to conceal their actions and avoid a full hearing by any means possible. They filed an Anti-SLAPP Motion that froze discovery. Although Connecticut’s Anti-SLAPP statute provides for limited discovery on a showing of good cause, they insisted that no discovery could be permitted here. When that failed, they stonewalled again by withholding all discovery even though thousands of documents had already been produced in Texas and were responsive in this case. To justify their stonewalling, they fired their original counsel and made the astonishing claim that for twelve days following this Court’s March 7 warning concerning the consequences of noncompliance, Attorney Barnes misled them to believe that compliance had in fact been made. What seems far more likely - especially since Barnes continues to advise Jones concerning the defense of these cases and the Texas cases - is that Attorney Barnes did not attempt to appear here so that his encouragement of noncompliance could be done without risk of sanction by this Court.

The Court has given the Jones defendants chance after chance to comply with its discovery orders. Each time, the Jones defendants respond with delay, evasiveness, and outright dishonesty. The only way to ensure full and fair compliance is to open discovery.