News Article: Alex Jones liable for defamation in Sandy Hook 'hoax' case

[JDCrimson]

To know the answers fully to your questions you would need to take a class in Evidence in law school. There are a lot rules regarding discovery of evidence. Evidenced produced in a civil trial is discoverable in a criminal investigation unless prohibited by rule or protected by privilege.

 

[jthomas666]

He's far from "off." Tomorrow, he finds out what the jury really thinks of him...

Yeah, but as I understand it, the amount of the compensatory damages caps the punitive; some multiple (10?). And yeah, I think $44m would be too light for him.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

I go back and forth on Jones’s defense attorneys’ “blunder.” Seems like every point that runs through my head has a yeah, but…..

Jones’ attorneys (1) turn over not just the requested texts, but the entire contents of the phone. Then they compound that by (2) failing to claim attorney-client privilege.

It’s such a jaw-dropping goofus blunder that I can’t help but wonder whether it might have been done intentionally.

As in, if they know they have a losing case, they pre-construct grounds for requesting a mistrial. If denied (and the motion has already been made and denied) it’s ready-made grounds for appeal. Or at the very least a re-trial due to incompetent counsel.

Yeah, but…..that phone contains a ton of other stuff, totally unrelated to Sandy Hook, that could put their client in jeopardy on other fronts.

Yeah, but….Can information obtained via mistake in discovery for one civil case be used to prosecute another unrelated civil case? How about a criminal one? What about information that could be used to investigate or prosecute (civilly or criminally) a third party, i.e., someone other than Jones?

Regardless of how the attorneys for the plaintiffs / parents came into the information, do they now have a duty to keep it private? Do they have a duty to turn it over to other attorneys prosecuting other cases? What rules, if any, govern who they can or can’t share the information with?

The answers are way beyond the second-hand legal knowledge I picked up over a 34-year commercial banking career, and about that long being married to an ERISA attorney. But I’m deadly curious.

Depending on the answers to those questions, the information on that phone could just provide conspiracy theorists with undocumented internet and talk radio fodder. Or it could tip the first domino that leads to a whole lot of liability.

Any legal eagles on the board have any thoughts?

Well, first, I think you can absolutely rule out any possibility it was intentional. Remember he was being sued for 150 million. No lawyer carries a malpractice policy that large. Second, I don't think it was an accident, either. They didn't just send it, saying "Here's something which might interest you." I don't know the details, but I know that discovery had been going on for years and I know that texts and emails had been requested. He said there were none. He was lying. Then these materials came into the possession of his attorneys. They were duty-bound to comply with discovery, so they did. Now comes the gray area. They turned over what was legally demanded, and, from reports, much, much more, a great deal of material unrelated to Jones/Sandy Hook. From all that has appeared so far, that seems like negligence. This is not because of attorney-client privilege. From what I understand so far, much of this material would fall outside that privilege, anyway. That's a matter between Jones and his lawyers, perhaps between the attorneys and their bar disciplinary body. The cat is out of the bag now that it's been exposed. I don't think it can be suppressed now...

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Yeah, but as I understand it, the amount of the compensatory damages caps the punitive; some multiple (10?). And yeah, I think $44m would be too light for him.

I think you're thinking of the SCOTUS dictum where they suggested that anything exceeding 9-1 might violate due process. Since then, some courts have awarded far higher. A lot of states, including Texas, have instituted caps. It seems that 2x actual damages plus $750,000, max, may be the cap. There are a number of exceptions, but I saw none which this fit. That was a 2003 act. The $750K cap would be 1.2 million today, if the cap were indexed, which I saw no sign of. This was just at a glance, subject to any correction by anyone with more expertise in this particular area. It's not my usual area...

 

[Bamaro]

I guess the real question now is how much can really be extracted from him and his assets.

 

[PaulD]

Well, first, I think you can absolutely rule out any possibility it was intentional. Remember he was being sued for 150 million. No lawyer carries a malpractice policy that large. Second, I don't think it was an accident, either. They didn't just send it, saying "Here's something which might interest you." I don't know the details, but I know that discovery had been going on for years and I know that texts and emails had been requested. He said there were none. He was lying. Then these materials came into the possession of his attorneys. They were duty-bound to comply with discovery, so they did. Now comes the gray area. They turned over what was legally demanded, and, from reports, much, much more, a great deal of material unrelated to Jones/Sandy Hook. From all that has appeared so far, that seems like negligence. This is not because of attorney-client privilege. From what I understand so far, much of this material would fall outside that privilege, anyway. That's a matter between Jones and his lawyers, perhaps between the attorneys and their bar disciplinary body. The cat is out of the bag now that it's been exposed. I don't think it can be suppressed now...

Stuff like the release does happen. About 30 years ago when I was an Air Force attorney in San Antonio, a lot of my work involved fraud by contractors against the government. I had been in Washington at a training session and when I got to the DC airport, I called back to my office to check for messages. There was one to call the lead Air Force investigator ASAP. When I did, I was surprised to hear him laughing almost hysterically. He had served an IG subpoena for documents on our target company and in the box of stuff they provided was a document laying out their fraudulent scheme along with a statement that if we ever saw this document, we would consider it an admission of fraud. Their lawyer found out we had it and they immediately started wanting to settle the case. Not quite as public as Jones learning about his stuff being out, but we still enjoyed it!

 

[NationalTitles18]

Stuff like the release does happen. About 30 years ago when I was an Air Force attorney in San Antonio, a lot of my work involved fraud by contractors against the government. I had been in Washington at a training session and when I got to the DC airport, I called back to my office to check for messages. There was one to call the lead Air Force investigator ASAP. When I did, I was surprised to hear him laughing almost hysterically. He had served an IG subpoena for documents on our target company and in the box of stuff they provided was a document laying out their fraudulent scheme along with a statement that if we ever saw this document, we would consider it an admission of fraud. Their lawyer found out we had it and they immediately started wanting to settle the case. Not quite as public as Jones learning about his stuff being out, but we still enjoyed it!

In completely unrelated news...

Exclusive: Trump lawyers in talks with Justice Department about January 6 criminal probe

The talks revolve around whether Trump would be able to shield conversations he had while he was president from federal investigators.

www.cnn.com

 

[4Q Basket Case]

Well, first, I think you can absolutely rule out any possibility it was intentional. Remember he was being sued for 150 million. No lawyer carries a malpractice policy that large. Second, I don't think it was an accident, either. They didn't just send it, saying "Here's something which might interest you." I don't know the details, but I know that discovery had been going on for years and I know that texts and emails had been requested. He said there were none. He was lying. Then these materials came into the possession of his attorneys. They were duty-bound to comply with discovery, so they did. Now comes the gray area. They turned over what was legally demanded, and, from reports, much, much more, a great deal of material unrelated to Jones/Sandy Hook. From all that has appeared so far, that seems like negligence. This is not because of attorney-client privilege. From what I understand so far, much of this material would fall outside that privilege, anyway. That's a matter between Jones and his lawyers, perhaps between the attorneys and their bar disciplinary body. The cat is out of the bag now that it's been exposed. I don't think it can be suppressed now...

So I guess the real question is who owns the copy of the phone.

And whoever that is, what restrictions, if any, prevent them from posting the whole thing on internet? (a long time ago, I would have said a billboard, but those days are gone)

I asked Mrs. Basket Case, but she didn’t really practice that sort of law, and was a bit out of her element. She said she thought it belonged to the plaintiffs (the clients, not the attorneys). If she’s right, I know the plaintiffs would give their attorneys permission to make the copy public information. — except maybe any medical or other protected information.

I’ve seen some allusions to their being texts and/or emails between Jones and Roger Stone. If so, that has the potential to be anything from a yawner (two blowhards going back and forth), to evidence of crimes.

Either way, I’d pay money to have heard the conversation between Jones an his attorneys after the courtroom bombshell.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Stuff like the release does happen. About 30 years ago when I was an Air Force attorney in San Antonio, a lot of my work involved fraud by contractors against the government. I had been in Washington at a training session and when I got to the DC airport, I called back to my office to check for messages. There was one to call the lead Air Force investigator ASAP. When I did, I was surprised to hear him laughing almost hysterically. He had served an IG subpoena for documents on our target company and in the box of stuff they provided was a document laying out their fraudulent scheme along with a statement that if we ever saw this document, we would consider it an admission of fraud. Their lawyer found out we had it and they immediately started wanting to settle the case. Not quite as public as Jones learning about his stuff being out, but we still enjoyed it!

Yesterday, the CNN legal experts were speculating along those lines, that the defense attorneys were too lazy to filter through the mass of material, so they just dumped it all...

 

[TIDE-HSV]

So I guess the real question is who owns the copy of the phone.

And whoever that is, what restrictions, if any, prevent them from posting the whole thing on internet? (a long time ago, I would have said a billboard, but those days are gone)

I asked Mrs. Basket Case, but she didn’t really practice that sort of law, and was a bit out of her element. She said she thought it belonged to the plaintiffs (the clients, not the attorneys). If she’s right, I know the plaintiffs would give their attorneys permission to make the copy public information. — except maybe any medical or other protected information.

I’ve seen some allusions to their being texts and/or emails between Jones and Roger Stone. If so, that has the potential to be anything from a yawner (two blowhards going back and forth), to evidence of crimes.

Either way, I’d pay money to have heard the conversation between Jones an his attorneys after the courtroom bombshell.

I think she's correct about ownership. However it happened and whatever the ownership, it has now entered the public domain and any privilege is long gone...

 

[4Q Basket Case]

I think she's correct about ownership. However it happened and whatever the ownership, it has now entered the public domain and any privilege is long gone...

Thanks. If the entire contents of that phone are in the public domain, it could get interesting.

 

[PaulD]

Yesterday, the CNN legal experts were speculating along those lines, that the defense attorneys were too lazy to filter through the mass of material, so they just dumped it all...

Never underestimate laziness.

In another case from about the same time, we got a Freedom of Information Act request for all documents we had on a particular program. The program manager told me that they had about 25 full-size file cabinets of documents. I called the paralegal for the law firm that filed the request and asked her if she could be more specific about what they wanted. She was rude and said that's our request and you have to process it.

I told her that in that case, the regulations would require them to send us a check for $30K (in 1990s $) so we can start looking. And then, since law firms aren't just curious, they file these on behalf of clients who will have to pay these costs. She should go tell the lawyer she was working with that the client will need to front that. I said the alternative is for her to give us a more specific request and the costs will be lower, it can be handled quickly, and the documents might be releasable. She quietly said she would withdraw the request . After a bit of work on her part, she submitted a more focused request that we could process quickly and most of what she wanted was releasable.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Thanks. If the entire contents of that phone are in the public domain, it could get interesting.

It's part of the discovery of the case and, unless a judge seals it, it's open to the public to peruse. I'm not sure DOJ or 1/6 even needed to subpoena. They could just request transcripts...

 

[CrimsonJazz]

Question for the lawyers in the room: is "ineffective assistance of counsel" grounds for an appeal in a civil case or does this apply only to criminal law?

 

[Bamaro]

Mr. Pettingill’s testimony on Friday, as well as the Free Speech Systems bankruptcy filing, yielded several key observations about Mr. Jones’s finances, including:

■ Infowars averaged $53.2 million in annual revenue between September 2015 and December 2018, Mr. Pettingill said.

■ Since then, there has been a “nice healthy increase” in the company’s revenue, including from sales of survivalist merchandise and supplements, and it brought in more than $64 million last year, he said.

■ At one point, Mr. Jones was paying himself an average of $6 million a year, Mr. Pettingill said.

■ In its bankruptcy filing, Free Speech Systems reported $14.3 million in assets as of May 31, with $1.9 million in net income and nearly $11 million in product sales.

■ Free Speech Systems also had nearly $79.2 million in debts, 68 percent of it in the form of a note due to PQPR Holdings, an entity that names Mr. Jones as a manager.

■ Last year, after Mr. Jones was ruled liable by default in the Sandy Hook cases, he began funneling $11,000 per day into PQPR, Mr. Pettingill said.

The “gigantic” loan from PQPR, a shell company without any employees, is actually Mr. Jones “using that note as a clawback to pay himself back,” Mr. Pettingill said, although Mr. Jones’s lawyer insisted that PQPR is a real company. Another note is set to mature when Mr. Jones is 74 years old (he is now 48).


Mr. Pettingill said he had managed to track nine private Jones-associated companies, but had to cobble together information in part because Mr. Jones’s team resisted discovery orders.

“We can’t really put a finger on what he does for a living, how he actually makes his money,”

“His organization chart is an inverted T, which means everything flows to Alex Jones. Alex Jones made all the major decisions, and I think Alex Jones knows where the money is,” Mr. Pettingill said. “He can say he’s broke, he has no money, but we know that’s not correct.”

What the Trial of Alex Jones Revealed About His Finances (msn.com)

Looks like its very lucrative being a despicable pig.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Question for the lawyers in the room: is "ineffective assistance of counsel" grounds for an appeal in a civil case or does this apply only to criminal law?

I've never seen or heard of it even being mentioned in appellate cases. I've been practicing 59.5 years, but I might have missed it...

 

[CrimsonJazz]

What the Trial of Alex Jones Revealed About His Finances (msn.com)

Looks like its very lucrative being a despicable pig.

Always has been. Just look at the state of politics in D.C.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

I've never seen or heard of it even being mentioned in appellate cases. I've been practicing 59.5 years, but I might have missed it...

I clearly watch too much Discovery ID; having said that, I've heard of it. It seems to be rare, though.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

I clearly watch too much Discovery ID; having said that, I've heard of it. It seems to be rare, though.

This is from an 1984 Alabama Supreme Court decision:

" In an ordinary civil case, the general rule regarding ineffective assistance of counsel is that relief from a court's judgment when a party hired his own lawyer will not be granted on the grounds of incompetent or ineffective counsel."

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Looks like the cap didn't apply. 45.2 million in punitive damages...