InfoWars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones could soon face a warrant for his arrest, after defying a court order Thursday ordering him to sit for a deposition.
For the second day in a row, Jones failed to appear at a deposition in Austin, Texas, part of a Connecticut lawsuit filed by the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. In response, doctors representing Jones have claimed he’s too sick to be deposed, citing an unnamed illness that didn’t prevent Jones from hosting episodes of his hours-long conspiracy theory show this week.
After Jones skipped the first scheduled deposition on Wednesday, lawyers for the plaintiffs asked Connecticut Judge Barbara N. Bellis to issue a warrant for his arrest to force him to participate in the deposition. In response, Bellis ordered Jones to appear Thursday at the deposition or face potential court action. Now that Jones has skipped that second deposition, the judge is expected to take action against him as soon as later on Thursday.
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“Mr. Jones cannot unilaterally decide to continue to engage in his broadcasts, but refuse to participate in a deposition,” Bellis wrote in the Wednesday order demanding that he appear.
Bellis already ruled last year that Jones had defaulted in the case, taking the rare step of declaring that he had lost the case before it reached trial because of his violations of legal procedure. As the judge now tries to determine what damages Jones and InfoWars will have to pay to the Sandy Hook families for his allegations that the shooting was a false-flag, Bellis could escalate the punishments, including issuing the arrest warrant.
Lawyers for Jones didn’t respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment on Thursday. In comments to reporters on Wednesday, Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, said it was “galling” that Jones appeared intent on avoiding questions after the family members sat for their own depositions in the case.
“This is, in our view, a cowardly display intended to cheat the plaintiffs of their right to put him under oath and ask him questions,” Mattei said.
