Infowars founder Alex Jones and his legal team have remained defiant to a judge’s order to stop chewing gum in the Sandy Hook damages hearing Tuesday.
“What are you chewing?” the judge asked, turning her attention to Jones’ attorney, F. Andino, after she had previously told Jones to spit his gum out. She added that it’s a “foundational rule that you do not chew gum or eat in the courtroom” and that the courtroom handles “serious” matters.
After already losing the defamation trial, today’s proceedings aim to decide the amount the Infowars host must pay to parents of students killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting after declaring that the massacre was a hoax.
Following the judge’s second warning to Jones and his legal team for the gum-chewing, Jones can be seen turning toward a camera and putting something in his mouth. When the judge first noted Jones’ chewing, he said that he was not chewing gum and claimed he had just had a tooth pulled and was massaging the area with his tongue.
As Jones began his testimony, he attempted to apologize to an unknown party, before the judge noted that he must only answers questions asked by the attorney.
Just hours before Jones was set to testify, the host bashed the trial on his Infowar radio show, calling the judge and the legal teams “demonically possessed.” In the same day, the conspiracy theorist also criticized Neil Heslin, a father to a Sandy Hook victim, as being “slow” and claimed that he was “on the spectrum.”
In November 2021, Jones was found liable for damages after families from 10 children killed in the school shooting filed four lawsuits against Jones and his media company Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, citing defamation and infliction of emotional distress. The families of the Sandy Hook victims maintained they faced harassment and death threats from Jones’ followers following the host’s spreading of various conspiracy theories about the event.
Although Jones had offered to pay $120,000 per plaintiff to settle the case, the families are seeking damages up to $150 million.
Since his initial claims, Jones admitted in a deposition released in 2019 that the shooting did happen, saying that “a form of psychosis” led him to believe the massacre was a hoax.
