Law&Crime Sidebar - Top 3 Moments: Alex Jones Sandy Hook Defamation Trial Day Two

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

The Law&Crime Network's Jesse Weber breaks down the top three moments from day two of Alex Jones' Sandy Hook defamation trial in Connecticut.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael Deininger Guest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Let me ask you this from Free Spee Systems. Is Free Speed Systems aware of any other media personality during this time who was publishing information that Sandy Book was a hoax that even comes remotely close to his audiences.

Like I said, I can't answer that. I don't know anything about any other companies that I can't hold this speech. We'll recap the top three moments from day two of Alex Jones's trial out in Connecticut. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Webber. Alex Jones' second trial is well underway.

This time. Connecticut. He's facing a very similar trial like he did in the Texas trial, which we covered here on Cybar in the Long Crime Network. He's being sued for his comments regarding the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which he basically called a hoax, said there were crisis actors, that it was staged in the Texas trial. The parents of a six-year-old who was gunned down in that elementary school shooting, they were awarded almost $50 million in damages. In this case, you have eight Sandy Hook family members, one FBI agent, so you have more plaintiffs, possibly a bigger payout. And they sued under several claims, defamation, both intentional and negligent

infliction of emotional distress, unfair trade practices, invasion of privacy, and they've already won. The court already ruled against Alex Jones. They entered a default judgment against him because he basically chose to not participate in this litigation. He didn't respond to discovery obligations and court orders. And when that happens, you automatically lose. So the question in this case, the same one as it was in Texas for the jury is, how much are they going to pay out to for the family. How much does Alex Jones ultimately owe? And in this day two, we saw the testimony of Brittany Paz. And she's very interesting because she is the corporate representative for free speech systems LLC. And free speech systems LLC is interchangeable with Info Wars. That's what we're talking about.

When we talk about a corporate representative, if you think about it, if a corporation could testify if it was living and breathing and we get on the stand, that's what she is. She is the embodiment of the company. She is speaking for that company. But I will tell you that Ms. Paz is not really an employee of Info Wars. It's not like she's worked there for 20 years or work for Alex Jones. She was retained by the defense. She's a Connecticut attorney. She was paid about $30,000 for her work. She used to be an actual attorney that worked with Norm Patis, who is the defense attorney in this case. And her job was to review all the financial records, meet with employees, really study the company as a whole to get kind of a 360 degree perspective of this company. And keeping that

in mind, her time on the stand was a bit tense. Because if you think about it, Why was she called? Alex Jones could have been called as the representative of the company. There were other employees of InfoWars who could have been called as representatives and who acted in that capacity. But no, they chose to make Ms. Paz the representative. You met with Alex Jones, right? I did. You took notes of your conversation with Alex Jones?

I did. You put in all caps at the bottom of your notes that Alex Jones told you he is not a journalist? Yes. That was very important for him for you to tell this. jury, right? It was important for him to get across to me that that's what he thought. No, no, no. It was important to him that you tell this jury that because he knew that's what you were going to do. Do you actually an argumentative? She doesn't know what he was. I don't know if he knew I was going to

tell the jury that or, but he wanted me to understand that's what his position was. Well, he's paying you $37,000 to testify here, right? I was paid to do a broad array of analysis of the company and to testify in connection with the Texas litigation and here he asks. So there's no question that he knew you were going to come here and testify to these people, right? I'm sure. Objection, Judge, again, calls for speculation in what Mr. Jones knew he'll testify here. He knew you were going to come and testify to you. Well, I'm sure he knew that I was designated as the corporate rep and so that was my purpose, so yes.

And you wanted you to tell them that he's not a journalist, right? That is the sum and substance of what my conversation was. was. So not only do we get kind of this glimpse into Jones's thinking and strategy, but the implication here is that Ms. Paz was hired for a specific reason. They didn't want to just have anybody from the company testify. They wanted her to testify. Maybe she could have plausible deniability to certain things that were going on. Maybe she would testify in a way that was beneficial to the defense in Alex Jones. So Chris Maddie, who's one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, he spent time trying to impeach her credibility. But then he gets into the money

that has been brought in by InfoWars and Alex Jones. Remember when we talked about earlier about the business model? Yes. Maximize that audience, get them all to the content websites, and then send them to the score, right? Uh-huh. Because if you have billions of audience member,

some percentage of those people are going to end up buying your stuff. Sure. Right. And that huge audience growth translated into hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, correct? Over a broad period of time, what time period are we talking about? Well, let's take 2012 till today.

2012 to this very moment. So in the last 10 years. Last 10 years. Hundreds of millions of dollars, right? I don't know what the exact figure is, but it's quite substantial. I don't know if it's hundreds of millions of dollars, but...

Well, this is kind of important, right? Free speech systems revenue, you know that you were supposed to talk about it. Judge, can we have a question? You know you were supposed to talk about this, right? Yes. Okay. And all I'm asking you, I'm not even asking you for a precise number.

Okay. Okay. Hundreds of millions, yes? I believe so. Okay. More than five? 100? I don't know the exact number, which is why I said I wasn't sure about the exact number.

And as a result of all of that revenue, it's fair to say that Alex Jones has become a very, very rich man. Well, Alex Jones owns the company and the website is earning money, but I don't, are you, do want to talk about the value of the company? Can you answer the question? Okay. Okay. I can't very, very rich hand, I can't, I don't, I can't talk about his personal finances. I'm here to talk about free speech.

Well, didn't you produce at least some evidence concerning his compensation? Yes, we produced some evidence as far as his dream. draws from free speech as well as his compensation for the years at issue. And you know having to view that, but he's become very, very rich. I know he's made some millions of dollars, yes. Ms. Foss. Some millions? Some millions.

Would you like to talk about specific numbers? I don't recall the specific numbers. all the specific numbers. Has he made personally $100 million? I don't know what the number is. And also how Info Wars grew after promoting this false Sandy Hook coverage. Since the Sandy Hook shooting, Mr. Jones' audience has grown exponentially. Is that fair to say?

Since 2012, yes. So there has been an increase in the viewership. It's been, at least as Mr. Jones has described it, it's been an exponential result, correct? I think he's used those words, yes. Okay. And as a result of that growth, Alex Jones and Inful Wars have had billions upon billions of social media impressions, correct? I'm sure that there have been that many. I don't know the number, the exact number, but I've been.

not going to disagree with you that there's there's a big social media footprint. And I talked about this in my opening. Objection, Judge, it's not evidence. So on the top there, you have the, again, they're telling their audience just how many million visitors per month, right? Yes. Okay. And they're telling their audience their rankings, right?

Their website rankings. I'm sorry, where are you looking? Yeah, we see topping the charts, holding our own against the mainstream media. Okay, I see you're, it's the comparison, yes. It's the comparison. Like what you're saying, so you see the six different websites listed there, right? Yes. And what they're saying is, hey, we're bigger than Glenn Beck, we're bigger than Rush Limbaugh,

we're bigger than Newsmax, and we're bigger than WND.com, whatever that is, right? Yes. Okay. They're the biggest, right? I, that, I guess my question is I don't know what those numbers mean. Maybe zoom out a little bit. Well, let me, you know what, yes, go ahead and zoom out, but you know that Alex Jones consulted a program called Alexa, right? Holding on the traffic.

Okay. All right, I see what it is. Yeah. And this isn't the Alexa you have in your kitchen where you ask what the weather's going to be today, right? No. This is a website ranking program, right? That's the source, yes. Right.

And what Alex Jones, and you know that Alex Jones regularly consulted Alexa to see where InfoWars.com was in the world rankings, right? I believe you did. Yeah. And here, as of 2014, in the United States, InfoWords.com was the 301 most popular website. That's what it says, yes. Right. Of all the millions of websites in the United States, right? That's what it says here. Okay.

And in the world, all the websites in the world, InfoWords was 1,22. Yes. Right? And this is important in a few ways. It's important because first, when you think about this whole case, it's about trying to establish not only the harm that the plaintiffs suffered as a result of Jones's commentary on Sandy Hook, but how he profited off of this for years. And by the way, as we recall from day one, Jones isn't allowed to argue that he didn't profit off of Sandy Hook coverage.

He lost the ability to do that when he refused to hand over a key document to the plaintiff side. The judge punished him, sanctioned him, and said, okay, now what's going to happen is you can no longer make the argument that you didn't profit off of Sandy Hook, which was a pretty key defense for Alex Jones. And to hear how Jones, you know, during the course of this, would sell these supplements and these products and how he allegedly misrepresented to supporters where their donations were going. There was testimony that perhaps these donors thought

their money was going to Info Wars as generally, but it was possibly pocketed by Alex Jones himself. And Ms. Paz wouldn't confirm or deny that. But to keep promoting this Sandy Hook coverage, how the numbers are growing, selling this story is working, they're bringing in more money, the plaintiffs are showing that this was a deliberate campaign of harmful minutes information and Alex Jones was making money off of this. And when you think about that, this could lead to possibly a very significant damages award by the jury. And while on the stand, Ms. Paz was asked about what Jones does, how he drives traffic. How does he capitalize on all this? Because he didn't just promote a Sandy Hook hoax. He also said there was other things that

maybe shouldn't be believed. Rich, I mean, I interviewed the cops and the people that saw the feds like the moms in Oklahoma City. You saw them stage fast and furious. Folks, they staged Aurora. They staged Sandy Hook. The evidence is just overwhelming. And that's why I'm so desperate and freaked out. This is not fun.

You know, getting up here telling you this, somebody's got to tell you the truth. Somebody's got to stand against this penal. Somebody's got to do it. This is what we were talking about earlier when Alex Jones was telling his audience that somebody's got to tell him the truth, right? Yes.

This is five months after Sandy Hook, yeah? I don't recall exactly when the bombing happened in Boston, but... Assume with me that this is April 16, 2013. Sure. Five months after Sandy Hook, right? Take your representation that. It was five months later. Okay.

They staged Sandy Hook. The evidence is overwhelming, right? Amongst other events, but yes. I'm asking you about Sandy Hook right now. Yes, he says Sandy Hook in the video, yes. The evidence is overwhelming, right? Yes. You agree with me.

that you heard him say also that they staged aurora right i did hear that yes what was he talking about there the shooting at the movie theater at aurora colorado there was a shooting at a movie theater in aurora in august of 2012 right i don't recall the date of that shooting but it was prior to this video a few months before seeing you Yeah. And he said that was staged. Yes. Because one of the things that Alex Jones does is he tells them that these horrible mass

shootings are actually hoaxes, right? The ones that he mentions there, yes. Now if this jury wasn't accustomed to Alex Jones before this trial, they certainly are. now. So who knows what will happen in day three, but we will cover it here on Sidebar. Well, thanks for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.