Alex Jones Seeks $100K From Sandy Hook Family

Infowars founder and conspiracy-theory aficionado Alex Jones is reportedly seeking more than $100,000 in court costs from a Sandy Hook family suing him for defamation. A hearing will begin Wednesday in the lawsuit filed by Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner, a couple who lost their 6-year-old son in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in December 2012. The couple argues that Jones’ claims of the shooting being a hoax led to a barrage of death threats against them, ultimately forcing them to relocate seven times. A separate hearing scheduled for Thursday stems from another defamation lawsuit—one filed by Marcel Fontaine, a man falsely identified as the Parkland school shooter on the Infowars website. In both cases, Jones is reportedly playing the victim by arguing the defamation allegations are an attempt to silence him, The New York Times reports. In court filings submitted ahead of trial this week, Jones and his lawyers argue the Pozner family’s lawsuit aims “to silence those who openly oppose their very public ‘herculean’ efforts to ban the sale of certain weapons, ammunition, and accessories, to pass new laws relating to gun registration and to limit free speech.”