Infowars founder Alex Jones failed to show up for his second deposition this week in a defamation case brought against him by families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Jones’s lawyer claims that the conspiracy theorist was following his doctor’s orders to stay home due to medical conditions.
“Mr. Jones was given conflicting imperatives: his physician told him to stay home; a judge told him to go to a deposition,” Norman Pattis, an attorney for Jones, said in an email. “He is following his doctor’s advice. I suspect most people sensible would do as Mr. Jones has done.”
“He has already sat for three depositions in related cases and the plaintiffs have hours of his recorded performances and thousands of documents produced by Mr. Jones,” he continued. “To suggest that he is a coward or is otherwise avoiding the litigation is callow pandering to haters. We very much look forward to trial.”
Jones was supposed to appear for depositions on Wednesday and Thursday in a case involving the families of the victims from the Sandy Hook massacre, which left over two dozen people dead in 2012.
Jones falsely claimed that the shooting was a “hoax,” but he later backtracked from those comments in 2019 during a deposition, saying the shooting had happened and that his previous comments had come from “a form of psychosis.”
Jones was found liable in several cases waged by the families of the victims after he failed to provide documents, including financial records, after he had been ordered to do so.
Pattis said in court filings on Wednesday that the conspiracy theorist did not attend his first court deposition that day after his doctors saw his medical conditions on Monday. However, it did not stop Jones from broadcasting his daily show on Tuesday.
Connecticut Judge Barbara Bellis had said earlier that if he did not come to his Thursday deposition, he would be in contempt of her order, according to the AP. She noted on Wednesday that his doctors’ letters seemed to suggest his medical conditions were not so critical to keep him from appearing before the court.
Chris Mattei, a Sandy Hook family attorney, blasted Jones for failing to appear for his second deposition.
“Once again, Alex Jones failed to appear for his court-ordered deposition today. This cowardly attempt by Mr. Jones to escape accountability for the years he spent spreading lies about Sandy Hook, shows contempt both for the law and the families,” Mattei said in a statement. “We will continue to work within the legal system to hold Mr. Jones accountable for his actions.”
Updated at 2:26 p.m.