Sandy Hook Families Reject Alex Jones Settlement Offer
The families have every intention of taking Jones to court.
Following the infamous Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, where 20 children and 6 teachers and staff were killed by a shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, Alex Jones, host of internet talk show InfoWars, denounced the incident has “staged” and “a hoax.” This prompted the families of those who lost loved ones in the shootings to sue Jones on the grounds of defamation and harassment.
This week, after several lost cases and failures to appear in court, Jones attempted to offer members of the affected families, as well as an FBI agent working on the case, a settlement of $120,000 per person, along with a “heartfelt apology for any distress his remarks caused.”
This settlement offer was swiftly rejected by the families and FBI agent, who dismissed it as “a transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs.”
Conspiracy extremist Alex Jones lost a defamation case against eight Sandy Hook families, who sued him for saying the massacre was “staged.”
The families have now rejected Jones’ offer to settle ahead of a trial to determine damages, court documents show.https://t.co/a50FSU6vEM
— Connecticut Post (@connpost) March 30, 2022
“With me it was never about money — it was about principle,” Neil Heslin, father of one of the slain students, told the Connecticut Post. “I’m not surprised Jones would try to settle before this goes to trial, but I am going to trial to fight him. I am going to argue the whole thing.” He also added that Jones’s apology “doesn’t matter to me.”
Trials are set to begin in April to determine the extent of the damages Jones owes to the affected families. Jones is also due to be penalized for failing to appear at previous depositions.