Transcript
We gather here in memory of 20 beautiful Children And six remarkable adults. They lost their lives in a school that could have been any school in a quiet town full of good and decent people? There could be any town in America On December 14, 2012, 20 year old Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut with several guns. He then murdered six staff members and 20 Children aged six and 7. The regular news cycle stopped as details poured in. There was nationwide grief and shock then as has become routine with mass shootings, the nation's attention drifted elsewhere. After a few weeks, Sandy Hook stopped being front page national news, but two groups of people remained entrenched in the tragedy for years. One was of course the parents and other family members of people who died that day. Some have worked for mental health and violence interventions in school, some have pushed for gun law reform. The other group was a chorus of conspiracy theorists, extremists and agitators who pressed false claims that the shooting was a hoax. They misconstrued information and echoed falsehoods that always pointed to the same false conclusion that Sandy Hook was staged by crisis Actors and orchestrated by some quasi governmental cabal that was powerful, invisible and also apparently prone to sloppy mistakes. If you subtract 20 for the Children who were killed. That leaves 606, where were they on the day of this event? If you assume busses will take 50 students, that would have been at least 12 busses and we don't even know that Adam Lanza exist or that he graduated from high school. Has anyone checked the records of the school to see if he was in fact a graduate of the school and the shootings at Parkland in Sandy Hook were manufactured uh in Sandy Hook. The school had been abandoned by 2008. It was loaded with asbestos and other biohazards damaged by a hurricane. There was even a huge flood in 2007, Sandy Hook deniers usually advocated other narratives. To about 9 11, the Kennedy assassination, weather manipulation, you name it. But the storylines, they contrived about those people and events centered on government agencies and well protected public figures. Sandy Hook misinformation took their scorn and suspicion towards ordinary people. The families of Sandy Hook victims, The parents of those killed that day received threats and harassment, strangers accused them of being paid patsies of the new world order and insisted their Children had not really existed. Some parents had to move frequently and lived within intense security protocols. Their personal information still circulates online. Lenny Pozner, whose son Noah died at Sandy Hook has told frontline that he has relocated seven times. I got a call from someone and I had just moved into a new apartment. He read me the address that I had just moved into and he read me my social security number one spout er of the Sandy Hook falsehoods loomed above all others. In terms of influence. Sandy Hook, it's got inside job written all over it. Sandy Hook is a synthetic, completely fake with actors In my view manufactured. I couldn't believe it at first, Alex Jones runs the website Info Wars, which at the time of this recording gets about 10 million visitors a month. He has cast the Sandy Hook shooting as one in a series of false flag operations created to convince people to surrender their rights. One week after the shooting info wars posted a video entitled Sandy Hook Shooting exposed as a fraud. It was the start of years of disinformation mockery and calls for listeners to investigate Sandy Hook Family members. In 2018, several of those family members decided to take Alex Jones to court. It's a case you may have seen headlines about, but today we'll go through what happened in the case of the defamation, lawsuits against Alex jones brought on by the families of Sandy Hook. Nothing about the harassment these parents and family members endured could be done in a criminal court, but could justice be served in a civil court. Stay tuned. This is Jillian and you are listening to civil, civil is brought to you by progressive insurance. Let's face it, sometimes, multitasking can be overwhelming. Like when your favorite podcast is playing and the person next to you is talking and your car fan is blasting all while you're trying to find the perfect parking spot. But then again, sometimes multitasking is easy. Like quoting with progressive insurance. They do the hard work of comparing rates so you can find a great rate that works for you, even if it's not with them, give their nifty comparison tool a try and you might just find getting the rate and coverage you deserve is easy. All you need to do is visit progressives website to get a quote with all the coverage is you want like comprehensive and collision coverage or personal injury protection. Then you'll see progressives direct rate and their tool will provide options from other come japanese all lined up and ready to compare. So it's simple to choose the rate and coverages you like press play on comparing auto rates, quote at progressive dot com to join the over 29 million drivers who trust progressive progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates comparison rates not available in all states or situations, prices vary based on how you buy Part one, Who is Alex Jones. Keep Austin weird is the unofficial slogan of austin texas. The peak of Austin's weirdness might be a C. T. V. The city's infamous public access cable channel since the 19 eighties. It is broadcast surreal comedy, homemade music videos, experimental films, vulgar phone calls, rants from makeshift talk show sets and person on the street interviews about UFOs. The way that starts feeding themselves is by pulling planets into them and when a planet gets to a certain space and and the cycle as it moves toward a son to become food, it has organisms that began growing on it. And this couldn't be the only solar system that that happens and it has to be prevailing throughout the system. That's my belief. This is where Alex jones got his start. After dropping out of community college in his early twenties, jones launched a call in show on a C. T. V. This led to a brief stint as a political talk show host at the city's K J F K F M. The Austin Chronicle called him a black helicopter conspiracy nut. This is Jones in 1998 at a ceremonial burning of the United Nations flag near the Texas Capitol Building. We see our local police coming more, more and more under federal control. We see the so called anti terrorism training going on in all the cities, the police girding themselves in black with ski masks. You know what I have to say to you. Get ready because this is history. It repeats itself. In 1999, the station fired him. Jones was apparently a tough sell to advertisers. Soon after he founded Info Wars, an ongoing trove of conspiracy, content info wars. Flagship product is jones. Daily broadcast by 2001. It was carried by more than 100 radio stations on september 11th 2001 with the twin towers still smoldering jones alleged a vast conspiracy within the United States Government Jones said this to rolling stone. In 2011, quote, I went on the air and said those were controlled demolitions. You just watched the government blow up the World Trade Center. I lost 70% of my affiliates that day. It was more the beginning of his career than the end though. The internet sprouted a 9 11 Truther movement of people who were convinced that 9 11 was an inside job. It wasn't unlike the pre existing subcultures of the john birch society or the militia movement whose central message was that an illuminati was secretly controlling everything to destroy America and Usher in a new world order Get ready and get angry. The Internet of the early 2000s was an excellent platform for such misinformation. Social media sites, barely monitored content. Two hour long documentaries of jones doing rapid fire dot connecting, spread freely on Youtube. So understand me folks, the government is behind the terrorist attacks, The First World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, the Second World Trade Center and they're telling us more terrorist attacks are coming and that we've got to give up our lives if we're going to have any security folks that's a fraud. We know who has the motive for september 11th, we know who's getting the pipelines and shipping in the open. We know who's selling the weapons with the Carlyle group, the bushes and the bin ladens. We know who's getting the police state here domestically and all these big un american corporations that are out there promoting. By the time rolling stone profiled Alex Jones in 2011, his YouTube channel had 80 million views. His daily video show streamed from a secret location in Austin got increasingly slick graphics and a posture studio space. It looked like a cable news show, even if it didn't exactly sound like one, I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin frogs gay. Do you understand that? I'm serious crap. I'm sick of being social engineering. It's not funny, Jones became a much parodied and much mocked internet personality with his hair trigger temper and increasingly bizarre claims. There are dozens of videos and photos of Obama having flies land on him indoors at all times of year and he'll be next to 100 people and no one has flies on Hillary reportedly. I mean I was told people around her that they think she's even possessed. Okay, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it ok. But jones was as rich and influential as some of the media elites. He claimed to despise as false political narratives became entrenched in online discourse as large audiences for Obama. Birtherism and Cunanan developed Alex jones was in a very lucrative position. He began selling info wars branded dietary supplements to his millions of listeners with names like Alpha power D. N. A. Force and super male vitality. His store also sold survivalist gear and non perishable food supplies for when the globalists take down the power grid right here is a 30 day food supply bucket, one bucket two, you got this. You are taken care of whether you're out doing a survival trip or camping or whether the apocalypse comes or in the great reset. One person is set jones. 2014 divorce proceedings gave a look at his income and lifestyle in testimony. He said his operations brought in more than $20 million a year in revenue. Court records obtained by the New York Times showed that Jones spent $40,000 on a saltwater aquarium, owned a grand piano worth $70,000, possessed $50,000 worth of firearms and had a safety deposit box stuffed with $752,000 in silver, gold and other precious metals. Before their divorce. He and his wife planned on building a swimming pool complex with a waterfall and dining cabana Jones was also increasingly influencing and invading political events rather than just ranting about them. In 2015. He aligned himself with then Republican candidate Donald Trump, who was a guest on his show ahead of the republican primaries a year into office. You'll be saying, wow, I remember that interview, he said he was gonna do it and he did a great job. You'll be very proud of our country. Well, I'm impressed. I mean you're saying you're fully committed. You know, there's no future if we don't take this country back Donald trump. I hope you can help in cripple America. Thank you so much sir, that you will be attacked for coming on and we know you know that thank you. Jones began promoting and even appearing at political rallies in january of 2020. He hyped a pro gun march in Richmond Virginia and arrived in a black humvee like vehicle branded with the info wars logo. He spoke from an opening in its roof that resembled the hatch of a tank, his unmistakable voice booming from a P A system. After the 2020 election, Jones helped fund events in Washington D.C., that protested the certification of President Joe Biden's victory. He spoke to a crowd of people the day before the January six riot at the Capitol, right. The globalist, we have only begun our fight against their charity info wars expanded to a group of correspondence dispatched to antagonize jones's targets info wars host Owen Schreuder went to san Antonio to confront Congolese migrants and the nonprofits that administered humanitarian aid to them accusing both of spreading Ebola info wars also deployed laura loomer to Parkland florida to confront a congressman at a community meeting. Weeks after the mass shooting at its high school Jones has also employed as a pseudo journalist, a serial harasser of Sandy Hook families. My name is Wolfgang Halbig. I'm from Lake county florida town called Sorrento Florida. This is one of the few videos of Wolfgang Halbig that hasn't been scrubbed from the Internet. I'm a national school safety consultant for the last 25 years. I've traveled the country and you look at me like I'm here today to create a problem. That's the last thing I want to do. He's speaking to the Newtown school board in that clip. In 2014, Helbig led a group of conspiracy theorists to Newtown. Behind him was a man dressed like a colonial Williamsburg reenactor. Why no trauma helicopters? Why would you not let paramedics board members? These are your Children and you wouldn't let paramedics and E. M. T. S into the building. You got 27 Children declared dead within eight minutes. Who does this for the record. Sandy Hook elementary was about 11 miles from a hospital making helicopter transportation senseless. E. M. T. S were in the building. Some have spoken and written about it. The gunman did not kill 27 Children but 27 people total including his mother at home before entering the school. Police officials gave account of the dead later in the day. Not eight minutes after the shooting, Helbig, a former school safety administrator ran the website Sandy Hook justice dot com until 2016 on it. He claimed Sandy Hook parents had faked their Children's deaths, quote to steal money from hardworking americans and to deceive and defraud the american public and collect donations. These claims were published next to photos of the parents and their deceased Children. He was also convinced that a new town girl was actually one of the deceased Children and posted images of her with her real name. Hell Pick has made hundreds of information requests to town and state officials some asking for crime scene photos and graphic inventories of the cleanup Using $100,000 raised on Go Fund me. He has made more than 20 trips to Newtown In 2015 Info Wars connected him with a camera operator slash driver. They filmed outside ST rose of Lima, a church where funerals for several of the murdered Children took place until someone called the police on another trip info was provided Halbig with a videographer. It also sent a correspondent to cover one of his Freedom of Information act hearings in Hartford with the purpose of alleging a cover up. The video of it has since been erased news reports and the family's lawsuits note that Helbig was a guest on jones show multiple times. He spread false accounts of Sandy Hook that jones then echoed, We've got people clearly coming up and and and laughing and then doing the fake crying. We've clearly got people where it's actors playing different parts of different people. I've looked at it and undoubtedly there's a cover up. There's actors, they're manipulating, they've been caught lying when Helbig does visit Newtown, a group of local fathers quietly keep tabs on him according to a 2016 article in new york magazine. Some have resorted to pranks one day Helbig and his associates found their cars covered in rubber ducks, a symbol of new towns recovery after Sandy Hook, a Kiwanis club sent 500 of them and they were often in the hands of local Children during the hardest days. Another time someone sent Helbig an email from the address real Ivanka trump at gmail dot com, inviting him to present his findings to president trump at his mar a Lago estate. Helbig drove three hours there only to be turned away by security who had no idea who he was. My life can get a little hectic sometimes, especially as I'm scrambling, trying to prepare for this new baby and planning out my maternity leave from the podcast thankfully. Daily harvest does more so I can do less think stress free meals delivered to your doorstep. Just yesterday, I grabbed a daily harvest bowl from my freezer and had it for lunch. I then texted my husband that it was so delicious. I just had to let him know. 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They found obscure actors that resembled people in newscasts and pushed that as evidence that the shooting was staged footage of a father of a victim, deep breathing was mistaken for an acting technique. Ha Zehner works in I. T. And his approach to the conspiracy content echoes tech troubleshooting this again from this american life. So you need to find what the problem is and then find you know what your solution is and then start getting closer to that solution step by step. Otherwise the problem is overwhelming. He emailed info wars in 2013 Alex, he wrote, I'm very disappointed to see how many people are directing more anger at families that lost their Children in Newtown, accusing us of being actors haven't we had our share of pain and suffering. He got a response that said that Alex jones has never supported the crisis actor claim though it was on info wars website and would be repeated on jones show many times, Posner started releasing records of Noah online report cards, school photos, even his death certificate. He reached out to Wolfgang Halbig in 2014, after that Newtown school board meeting, an associate of Hell Biggs responded, Wolfgang does not wish to speak with you unless you Exume Noah's body and proved to the world you lost your son In January of 2020. Helbig was arrested for allegedly sending emails with Posner's personal information, Posner also founded the Honor Network, a group of volunteers who flag online content that harasses or slanders victims of tragedies urging the host company to remove it. He's had some success. After the 2016 election, social networks faced mounting pressure to control bullying and false content Facebook and YouTube hired hundreds of monitors. My experience is the likelihood on Facebook this year is 90% that it will get taken down. In 2018 Alex jones was deep platform from all major social networking sites and content hosting companies in quick succession stitcher, Facebook, Apple Youtube, Spotify, Vimeo, Pinterest, twitter and even linkedin all cited rules about hate speech or calls for violence. Also that year, Lenny Pozner and several other Newtown families filed a series of defamation lawsuits against Alex jones, his companies and sometimes his associates. In total, they sought millions in damages in texas. His home state jones faced three lawsuits from parents of first graders murdered at Sandy Hook in Connecticut, 11 people were listed as plaintiffs in a suit against jones 10 were relatives of Sandy Hook victims, One was an FBI agent seen in video footage from outside the school. Helbig had claimed he was a crisis actor, one who apparently changed costumes that day to also portray the father of one of the victims. The Connecticut lawsuit listed the comments jones had made and his promotion of and assistance to Helbig. The website asserted that Jones never actually believed that Sandy Hook was a hoax Even as he maintained unequivocally that it was the texas lawsuits were more tailored around info wars disinformation against the individual plaintiffs. For example, the lawsuit of Neil Heslin noted that info wars host Owen Schreuder claimed that Hess Lan lied about holding the lifeless body of his six year old son. Sandy Hook. Deniers say that Hess lands gut wrenching story contradicts coroner's statements that the Children were identified using school pictures and not by parents, but of course the bodies were later released to their families. This is hustling on the Today show talking about the impact of jones and other deniers. It opens continuous to open the wound more and more. Uh, but you know, to have somebody come up to me and and say how sorry they are about my loss and then a second later look me in the eye and say, do I think Sandy Hook really happened. I mean this is it's it's something that shouldn't shouldn't happen and uh, but it becomes a public threat and the public, you know, the safety of society. He's out peddling these lies like a carnival barker and it puts people like myself, supposed owners and other families at risk defamation, lawsuits are difficult in the US compared to other countries in new york Times v Sullivan, the Supreme Court decided that a publication had to act with actual malice in order for a public official to win a libel suit. L. B. Sullivan, the police commissioner of Montgomery Alabama sued The Times over an ad paid for by a civil rights group and shocked full of factual errors in 1960 for the court wrote that erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate. A libel plaintiff must show the statement was published with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. Nine years later, in Gertz v. Robert, Welch, inc, the Supreme Court ruled that the standard was lower for private individuals, american opinion, A magazine of the john birch society and an info wars of its day ran a series of articles alleging a communist conspiracy to discredit local police. It claimed that Attorney Elmer Gertz, who represented the family of a man killed by a Chicago police officer in a civil trial was part of it, although he was a respected lawyer, Gertz didn't meet many qualifications of a public figure discussing his actions was not as critical to free debate because of this. Whether or not the Sandy Hook families were public figures. Was important in an unsuccessful motion to get the texas cases filed by lenny Pozner and Noah's mother dismissed jones's lawyers, pointed to their history of advocacy to define them as public figures. Also important was the mindset of Alex jones if he acted with malice as for that mindset. The suit, by the media, by the democrats, using the poor parents is meant to just demonize you're truly building up to something big. They physically, I can guarantee you want to assassinate my character ahead of shutting me up, putting him in prison or having me killed. If you think the globalist don't kill people all day, they've hijacked America, they killed president Kennedy. They're trying to kill president trump one immediate effect of the suit was that jones seemed to walk back his comments about Sandy Hook. It's not that I'm running away from saying, I think it was a hoax. If it was a hoax for four years, I've said, I think people really died there. That isn't what he had said prior, but it took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake. I mean, even I couldn't believe it. I knew they jumped on it. Used the crisis hyped it up, but then I did deep research and my gosh, it just pretty much didn't happen in March of 2019, attorneys for the Sandy Hook families compelled jones to testify in a deposition. This is jones. An attorney. Mark Bankston, you will admit. I mean you've done mocking imitations of Sandy Hook parents crying correct? No, I want to play you a video clip too from september 24th 2014 and november 11th 2016. We play a video clip called crying and you've got parents laughing and then they walk over some camera. So not just one, but a bunch of parents doing this and we see footage of one of the reported fathers of the victims, Robbie Parker doing classic acting training where he's laughing and joking and they say, hey, we're live. And he goes, oh, and maybe that's real. I'm sure it is. You realize now you were mocking the difficult emotional reactions of people who provably lost their Children. No, I was not mocking. I was showing what people were questioning. Jones seemed frustrated. He said that previously he had been forced outside the grips of reality. He blamed his comments on psychosis and I, you know, my myself, you know, almost like a form of psychosis back in the past where I basically thought everything was staged. You know, I've now learned a lot of times things aren't staged. So I think as a pundit and someone giving opinion that my opinions have been wrong, but they were never wrong consciously to hurt people. Bankston asked him to elaborate. You said false things about Sandy Hook because of a psychosis correct? Well, I'm just saying that the trauma of the media and the corporations lying so much. Then everything begins. You don't trust anything anymore. Like a child whose parents lie to them over and over again. Well, pretty soon they don't know what reality is the case continued not without a level of strangeness and stubbornness in the Connecticut courtroom lawyers for the plaintiffs said a cache of documents jones team sent over as part of the discovery contained numerous images of child sex abuse materials. They said they were in emails jones did not open. They contacted the FBI jones said that one of the lawyers sent him those images to frame him. Two years later, jones lawyers asked a judge to order Hillary Clinton to testify in the case. Their motion read quote, the defendants in this case believed that this suit was filed six years after the shootings at Sandy Hook as part of a vendetta inspired orchestrated and directed in whole or in part by Hillary Clinton as part of a vendetta to silence Alex. Jones info wars often had articles up on their website regarding the Clintons. The motion was denied and the judge is patience appeared to grow thin. Part three trials lawyers for the Sandy Hook families demanded a trove of documents from jones and his companies. Among them were business records and website analytics, videos of discussions about Sandy Hook relevant transcripts and content from social media accounts. Much info wars content was removed by jones and his staff or pulled out of public view in the purge of his material from mainstream websites. The lawsuits themselves contained dozens of U. R. L. Links that now go to dead ends. Jones's team was sluggish and handing them over missing deadlines set by the courts in september 2021. Judge My Aguilera Gamble who oversaw the texas leg of the lawsuits put her foot down. she entered default judgments finding jones liable in all three cases due to flagrant bad faith in callous disregard jones showed in the discovery process basically the ruling meant that Jones lost the cases by forfeit because of an unwillingness to play fairly to follow the court's instructions on his show, Jones posted a picture of one of the lawyers for the Sandy Hook families and said quote, you're trying to set me up with child porn, I'll get your a*s $1 million you little gang members, $1 million to put your head on a pike as a penalty. A judge barred jones from filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. He appealed unsuccessfully on free speech grounds to the Connecticut Supreme Court. The U. S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case And so a trial was scheduled for April 2022. Less than a week before it started, Jones made a major play in court. NPR reported on it. Three companies founded by conspiracy theorist and right wing broadcaster Alex Jones filed for bankruptcy yesterday, jones faces yet another defamation lawsuit set for next week in texas. This is one of many civil suits filed by the families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shootings in 2012. It appeared to be strategic. The Sandy Hook case couldn't proceed until either jones bankrupt companies were removed from the litigation or the bankruptcy judge permitted the case to go forward. Judge my Aguilera gamble who oversaw the Sandy Hook case in texas agreed to push back the case in light of the bankruptcies but not before awarding jones to pay another a million dollars in attorney's fees and for evidence tampering related to the litigation steven sather a bankruptcy attorney in austin texas told Fox seven news that the bankruptcies could make any additional fines and fees moot If the bankruptcy is allowed to stand, it almost doesn't matter who determines the liability because the way this thing is set up is that all Mr Jones and his companies are willing to pay or going to pay under this plan is $7.7 million. That's it. End of story attempting to suss out those bankruptcy issues and determine how much Jones would actually owe to victims. A texas. Civil jury convened in august 2022 to hear arguments and testimony to say that those proceedings were unusual, is an understatement in attempting to understand how much Alex jones really knew about the painful realities of the Sandy Hook shooting lawyers representing the plaintiffs asked for discovery information, Communications from jones related to Sandy Hook. The fruits of that discovery request emerged in a fiery court exchange. 12 days ago, your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you've sent for the past two years and when informed did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way. And as of two days ago it felt free and clear into my possession and that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn't have text messages about saying did you know that? I see I told you the truth. This is your parent mason moment. I gave them my phone. That wasn't persuasive to the victim's attorney. I had several several different phones with this number. But I did. Yeah, of course. I mean that's why you got it. Mr jones. That's not why my lawyer said it to you, but I'm hiding it. Ok. Mr jones just answer questions. Jones had blatantly lied to lawyers and his followers on info wars about his knowledge of Sandy Hook and his phone records showed as much among the people hoping to confront jones about his lies. Was Scarlett Lewis, mother of six year old Jesse. Lewis who was killed during the Sandy Hook tragedy. Sandy Lewis spoke directly to jones in the courtroom, Jesse was real. I am a real mom. I know you know that that's the problem. I know you know that and you keep saying it. You keep saying it why? In an interview with Good morning America Lewis talked about what it was like to address jones in court. I I was so nervous. I remember taking a cup of water and my hand was shaking but then I looked into Alex jones eyes who was sitting right in front of me and I really felt I could only feel compassion for him and really that's how I maintained my composure. Um I had already forgiven him, but that doesn't mean that you don't hold somebody accountable and what I saw was just a man, a human being in pain, lonely with no one there to testify for him. He had not a person there. On August 5th, 2022, a Texas jury decided that Jones must pay Jesse Lewis parents $45.2 million $4.1 million dollars in compensatory damages. They had already awarded Lewis told good morning America that the payout was about much more than money. I thought that it was fair and really my goal was to send a message about the importance of truth. It wasn't about the money for you. Not at all. Absolutely not. In all the commotion and questions surrounding Jones's actions, it was easy to forget that this civil trial revolved around a little boy who was one of 27 people including 20 Children murdered at Sandy Hook. Lewis spoke about her son, literally Jesse stood up to the shooter who came into his first grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School and saved nine of his cla*s. How did he do that? Uh the the shooter had just killed his principal and guidance counselor right outside his door, he turned into jesse's classroom, his gun either jammed or ran out of bullets. And during the short delay Jesse called for his friends to run and he's literally credited with saving nine of their lives. And so I'm sitting on the stand and I'm thinking, you know, in comparison to what Jesse did, This is the easier job for sure. Safeguarding truth in our country. My attorney literally asked the jury to choose love over fear and hatred and they did as could have been expected. The fallout from these decisions has been chaotic. Alex Jones's attorneys filed an appeal in the Texas case to get a judgment lower than the nearly $50 million. The jury had awarded A judge denied that appeal in November 2022. Despite Texas law setting a cap on punitive damages at twice the economic damages in the case plus up to $750,000. And Jones's other legal issues are staggering. Other judgments against him have amounted to an unbelievable $1.44 billion 1% of the total amount the family's hope to collect. Meanwhile, info wars continues to publish numerous daily stories. The litigation has done little to quiet the website. In fact, it seems to have thrived in the wake of these decisions According to bankruptcy filings, the company is worth as much as $270 million Jones pleaded with his listeners to support his show to support him after the trial, free speech systems is earning as much as $800,000 per day in sales of products such as nutritional supplements and male enhancement pills. Jones has sought approval for a $1.3 million free speech systems filed for bankruptcy And that's all for this episode. This episode was researched by Nicole Gus moratti and written by Nick kepler and matt stroud. Original music scoring and editing by Corey Hillman, narrated by me, Gillian Jalali. If you enjoyed this episode of civil, we have plenty more in the pipeline. So be sure to subscribe on apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks again for listening Until next time.
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