Mistrial denied as jury weighs damages against Alex Jones in Sandy Hook defamation trial

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - A Texas judge denied Alex Jones's motion for a mistrial on Thursday as jury deliberations resumed in a defamation case over the U.S. conspiracy theorist’s false claims about the Sandy Hook mass shooting.

The mistrial request followed the disclosure at trial that Jones's lawyer accidentally sent two years of the U.S. conspiracy theorist's text messages to the plaintiffs.

Federico Andino Reynal, an attorney for Jones, told Judge Maya Guerra Gamble that attorneys for the plaintiffs should have immediately destroyed the records. An attorney for the parents, Mark Bankston, used the texts to undercut Jones’ testimony during cross-examination on Wednesday.

Jones, founder of the Infowars radio show and webcast, is on trial to determine the amount of damages he owes for spreading falsehoods about the killing of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012.

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