Alex Jones faces lawsuits after calling Sandy Hook shooting a hoax
‘He has denied my reality long enough’, says mother of Sandy Hook victim
A third defamation lawsuit has been filed this week against conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones, in relation to repeated comments he has made calling the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax.
Veronique de la Rosa, who lost her six-year-old son Noah Pozner in the shooting that killed 20 children and six adults, told The Current's guest host Laura Lynch that the latest lawsuit is "hardly surprising."
Last month, de la Rosa and another victim's family filed similar suits against Jones.
"I think that he's at the nucleus of this kind of form of terrorism — really verbal terrorism — that is very dangerous," de la Rosa said.
"It is my belief that it is a form of inciting others to violence and to hatred."
Alex Jones is the host of InfoWars, an American radio show and media website, where he has argued the shooting on December 14, 2012 was staged.
"Sandy Hook is a synthetic — completely fake — with actors. In my view manufactured. I couldn't believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids," Jones stated on his show.
Jones has encouraged his followers to investigate the theory.
In 2017, a Florida woman who believed the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax was sentenced to five months in prison for threatening Leonard Pozner, de la Rosa's former husband.
However, on June 12, 2017, Jones walked back his previous statements about the shooting, saying "it probably did happen."
'Pouring of salt on a gaping wound'
For de la Rosa, the conspiracy theory and Jones' comments have been devastating.
"They've been a constant pouring of salt on a gaping wound," she said.
She believes Jones's statements about the Sandy Hook shooting are more than just a conspiracy theory.
"I have no doubt that it's purely motivated by profit, because he can't be as delusional as he is in what he peddles and be a functional human being who is bringing in above the average amount of money."
Jones also sells lifestyle and survivalist products through the InfoWars website.
The Current reached out to Jones for comment but did not receive a response.
"This is all out of context. ... And it's not even what I said or my intent," he said in a YouTube video posted Wednesday.
"I'm not going to get into the real defects of this, I'm going to wait until it's thrown out with prejudice."
Jones went on to describe the lawsuit as an attack on him and the First Amendment.
Listen to the full conversation near the top of this page.
With files from The Associate Press. This segment was produced by The Current's Julie Crysler and Ines Colabrese.