When radio host Alex Jones published a video in 2017 titled “Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed,” the parents of a little boy killed in the Sandy Hook shooting bought security alarms for their homes, fearful that they would once again be harassed by Jones’ legion of followers convinced the shooting never happened.
Now a lawyer for Jones wants to make the parents’ home addresses public.
Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa lost 6-year-old Noah in 2012 when a gunman stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 children and six adults. More than five years later, they still get harassed by conspiracy theorists claiming the shooting was all a hoax.
Their harassment has led to a defamation lawsuit against Jones, who has fueled the conspiracy fires for years by claiming interviews with the parents and media outlets were faked and that the shooting may have never happened. A Texas judge is currently reviewing whether Jones’ motion to dismiss the case has any merit. In the meantime, Jones’ lawyer is seeking to open the floodgates for dangerous parties to easily find the Sandy Hook parents.
In new court filings obtained by HuffPost, Pozner and De La Rosa, who live separately, describe the steps they took in the wake of Jones reigniting the hoax theory. The two purchased a privacy protection plan for their computers and a pair of motion detection alarms for their homes.
“Sometimes I lie awake at night worrying that despite our efforts at security, a determined conspiracy fanatic might gain entry to our home,” De La Rosa said in a court declaration.
“They’re using an old, outdated law to intimidate these people and it’s just sick.”
- Attorney Mark Bankston, who is representing the Sandy Hook parents
The parents have also paid a small fortune in grief counseling because of Jones, they said.
“Due to Mr. Jones’ broadcast, I have also suffered severe emotional distress and trauma which I cannot even begin to adequately describe,” Pozner said in his declaration. “No human being should ever be asked to suffer through the torment Mr. Jones carried out.”
In an objection, lawyer Mark Enoch, who is representing Jones in the defamation case, said the declarations should be thrown out if the parents don’t provide their dates of birth and addresses.
“The declarations filed by Plaintiffs are neither affidavits nor are they proper declarations,” Enoch’s objection says, citing a Texas law that he says requires them to provide personal information.
But lawyer Mark Bankston, who is representing the parents, cited nearly a dozen legal opinions and cases that seem likely to defeat Enoch’s objection. In his own filing, Bankston has demanded Enoch withdraw the objection.
“There are obvious reasons why these Plaintiffs are extraordinarily hesitant about filing public documents containing their personal information, such as their address or date of birth, and they will not publish that information absent a legal obligation to do so,” Bankston’s response reads. “Information such as date of birth, addresses, etc., have been used in the past by InfoWars followers to locate and harass the Plaintiffs.”
Bankston told HuffPost that Enoch’s filing is at best “tone deaf.”
“They’re using an old, outdated law to intimidate these people and it’s just sick,” he said.
The defamation lawsuit is one of many Jones is currently fighting. Bankston is also representing Sandy Hook father Neil Heslin in a defamation lawsuit against Jones. And in a separate defamation suit against the Infowars host, Bankston is representing a man whom Infowars falsely identified as the Parkland, Florida, school shooter.
Other defamation suits levied against Jones include one from six Sandy Hook parents and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting, and one brought by a man who filmed the violent vehicular attack that killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, during a white supremacist rally last summer. Jones called the man who filmed the attack a “deep state shill” and a “CIA asset.” (He’s not.)
Jones is also likely to see his revenue plummet after being dumped by YouTube, Spotify and Facebook this week. In a typically incoherent rant, Jones blamed a “globalist conspiracy” for silencing his hate speech and harassment, and asked that President Donald Trump help him get back on social media platforms.
Enoch, for his part, would not defend his newly filed objection to HuffPost when reached by phone Wednesday.
“I have no comment,” Enoch said. “The statute said what it said.”
When asked if he understood how this could further damage the lives of the parents, Enoch hung up.