Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones cannot use his personal bankruptcy to escape paying at least $1.1 billion in defamation damages stemming from his repeated lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, a U.S. bankruptcy judge ruled Thursday.

  • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Alex Jones and/or his lawyers were too stupid to show up to court and defend themselves, so Jones automatically lost a defamation lawsuit without anyone even proving that Jones lied.

    Wow, you might be thinking, that’s great for these plaintiffs but surely nobody else would be dumb enough to ignore a defamation lawsuit and thus instantly lose! Well, let me introduce you to a certain Donald J Trump.

    • DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, his lawyers were super incompetent. They pretty much proved to everyone he was lying.

      Damaging Alex Jones texts mistakenly sent to Sandy Hook family’s lawyers

      Attorneys for the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones “messed up” and sent to his legal adversaries “every text message” he had written in the past two years – contradicting claims Jones had nothing on his phone pertaining to the deadly Sandy Hook school shooting, which he long maintained was a hoax, it was revealed at his defamation trial on Wednesday.

      • meco03211@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It went even further than just sending the messages. Jones’ attorneys sending those could maybe have been a mistake. Had opposing counsel just gone and used them it could have bogged the whole process down horrifically. They’d likely appeal and fight that hard. So opposing counsel did the ethical thing and informed Jones’ attorneys multiple times seeking clarification and basically covering their own ass a bit. Jones’ attorneys didn’t respond. They could have said “that was a mistake and privileged so you can’t use them”, but they didn’t. Jones first found out in court while being cross examined. It was hilarious.

      • Default_Defect@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        The video I saw of the lawyer telling AJ in court that he had all that and his lawyer did fuck-all to fix it is FANTASTIC.

        Edit - Its in the link! WATCH IT

      • ZeroCool@feddit.ch
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        1 year ago

        After listening to all of the Knowledge Fight podcast’s 70+ hours worth of coverage of both cases (including multiple interviews with the plaintiffs lawyers)… I don’t believe for a minute that Alex Jones’ lawyers are competent enough to attempt a devious strategy.

        • willworkforicecream@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Fun fact: they actually just fined Alex $1 for each time he said “I don’t remember” or “I don’t recall that” during the depositions and that’s how it got up to over a billion.

          • a_queer_one@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Minor correction, Dan didn’t testify. He was present for some of the depositions of Alex in the TX case, being there to help guide Mark Bankston’s questioning. Mostly mentioning cause Dan was pretty clear he didn’t want to actually testify

      • GlendatheGayWitch@lib.lgbt
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        1 year ago

        Only for his lawyers to send the prosecutors a copy of every text message that he sent and received for the last 2 years. Haha

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      There’s a proto-fascist idea out there that authoritarians can find all the best people and put them in positions to do their best work. What actually happens is that they select people for personal loyalty first and competence a distant second. This is why Trump and Jones have such shit people on their legal teams.