Tag: Conspiracy

Alex Jones Seeks New Trial After $1B Sandy Hook Verdict

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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has asked a Connecticut judge to throw out a nearly $1 billion verdict against him and order a new trial in a lawsuit by Sandy Hook families, who say they were subjected to harassment and threats from Jones’ lies about the 2012 Newtown school shooting.

Jones filed the requests Friday, saying Judge Barbara Bellis’ pretrial rulings resulted in an unfair trial and “a substantial miscarriage of justice.”

“Additionally, the amount of the compensatory damages award exceeds any rational relationship to the evidence offered at trial,” Jones’ lawyers, Norm Pattis and Kevin Smith, wrote in the motion.

Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the 15 plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Jones, declined to comment on the filing Saturday, but said he and other attorneys for the Sandy Hook families will be filing a brief opposing Jones’ request.

Twenty first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School died in the attack on Dec. 14, 2012.

An FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight children and adults killed in the massacre sued Jones for defamation and infliction of emotional distress over his pushing the bogus narrative that the shooting was a hoax staged by “crisis actors” to impose more gun control.

Six jurors in Waterbury, Connecticut, ordered Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, on Oct. 12 to pay $965 million in compensatory damages to the plaintiffs and said punitive damages also should be awarded. Bellis has scheduled hearings for early next month to determine the amount of the punitive damages.

During the trial, victims’ relatives said in often-emotional testimony that they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’ show. Strangers showed up at the families’ homes to record them and confronted them in public. People hurled abusive comments on social media. Relatives said they received death and rape threats.

The verdicts came after another jury in Texas in August ordered Jones and his company to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the parents of another slain Sandy Hook child. A third trial over the hoax claims, involving two more Sandy Hook parents, is expected to be held near the end of the year in Texas.

Jones, who has acknowledged in recent years that the shooting did occur, has blasted the lawsuits and trials on his Austin, Texas-based Infowars show, calling them unfair and a violation of his free speech rights.

But he lost his right to present those defenses when the judges in Connecticut and Texas found him liable for damages by default without trials, for what they called Jones’ repeated failures to turn over some evidence including financial documents and website analytics to the Sandy Hook lawyers.

With liability already established, the trials in both states focused only on how much Jones should pay in damages.

Pattis, Jones’ lawyer, wrote in the motions filed Friday that there was a lack of evidence directly connecting Jones with the people who harassed and threatened the Sandy Hook families. Pattis said the trial resembled a “memorial service, not a trial.”

“Yes, the families in this case suffered horribly as a result of the murder of their children,” Pattis wrote, adding that Jones did not send people to harass and threaten the families.

“There was no competent evidence offered at this trial that he ever did,” he wrote. “Instead, there was a shocking abuse of a disciplinary default and its transformation into a series of half-truths that misled a jury and resulted in substantial injustice.”

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October 22, 2022
Jury indicates verdict reached in Alex Jones’ trial

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WATERBURY, Conn. — Jurors indicated Wednesday they have reached a verdict in conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Connecticut defamation trial.

Their decision was expected to be announced shortly.

Jones and his company were found liable for damages last year. The six-person jury is tasked with determining how much the Infowars show host should pay to 15 plaintiffs — including victims’ families and an FBI agent — for calling the 2012 massacre a hoax.

The jury has been instructed to arrive at two compensatory damages amounts per plaintiff: one sum for defamation damages and another for emotional distress damages. Jurors also will decide whether Jones should pay punitive damages; the judge would decide the amounts later.

Each compensatory damages amount has to be at least $1, but there is no cap. The plaintiffs’ lawyers have suggested total damages could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Jones has bashed the trial as a “kangaroo court,” described it as an affront to free speech rights, and called the judge a “tyrant.” His lawyer told the jury that any damages awarded should be minimal.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Jurors revisited testimony from the husband of a Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim as a third full day of deliberations began Wednesday in conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Connecticut defamation trial.

At the jury’s request, court began with a replay of a roughly hourlong audio recording of William Sherlach’s trial testimony. His wife, school psychologist Mary Sherlach, was among the 26 people killed in the 2012 shooting.

Her husband is among the lawsuit’s 15 plaintiffs, who include victims’ relatives and an FBI agent. All testified about being harassed by people who say the shooting was staged in a plot for more gun control.

Jones and his company were found liable for damages last year. The six-person jury is tasked with determining how much the Infowars show host should pay to the plaintiffs victims’ families and the FBI agent for calling the massacre a hoax.

William Sherlach, who goes by Bill, testified that he worried for his and his family’s safety because of the shooting deniers’ vitriol.

Sherlach testified that he saw online posts falsely positing that the shooting was a hoax; that his wife never existed; that she didn’t have the credentials to be a school psychologist; that his family was actually named Goldberg and lived in Florida; and that he was part of a financial cabal and somehow involved with the school shooter’s father.

Sherlach didn’t testify about receiving any harassing messages directly, though he also said that he didn’t have social media accounts or use email. Nor did he mention anything that Jones said specifically.

The jury has been instructed to arrive at two compensatory damages amounts per plaintiff: one sum for defamation damages and another for emotional distress damages. Jurors also will decide whether Jones should pay punitive damages; the judge would decide the amounts later.

Each compensatory damages amount has to be at least $1, but there is no cap. The plaintiffs’ lawyers have suggested total damages could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The plaintiffs include an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight victims who died. Twenty children and six educators were killed.

Jones has bashed the trial as a “kangaroo court,” described it as an affront to free speech rights, and called the judge a “tyrant.” His lawyer told the jury that any damages awarded should be minimal.

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October 12, 2022
Jury in 3rd trial won’t hear earlier results in Whitmer plot

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The results of two federal trials won’t be shared with jurors hearing evidence against three men who are charged in connection with a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a judge said Monday.

Defense lawyers pressed a judge in Jackson, Michigan, to let the jury know what happened to the six men who were separately charged with conspiracy in federal court.

An FBI agent has presented text messages, social media posts and recorded conversations to try to tie the three men to the others who were considered bigger players in the scheme. But two of those six were acquitted earlier this year, a result that wasn’t revealed during Hank Impola’s testimony.

“Bring it all in,” Leonard Ballard, an attorney for Joe Morrison, urged Judge Thomas Wilson with the jury out of the courtroom.

“It’s the truth and it’s the whole truth,” Ballard said. “I’m not comfortable with us continuing to tap dance around.”

Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar are charged in state court with providing material assistance for a terrorist act. They were members of a paramilitary group, the Wolverine Watchmen, that held training sessions, but they’re not accused of having a direct role in the kidnapping plot.

Wilson agreed that the results of the federal case could be relevant to the defense. But he said disclosure could be unfair to prosecutors.

“We’re dealing with different charges,” the judge said. “As attorneys, I think that’s much easier to understand. But when it comes to a jury of 12 lay people to understand those differences, I’m concerned that it would be overly prejudicial.”

Wilson said jurors might think: “’Well, if they got off, why shouldn’t these guys get off?’ The charges were significantly different and more serious.”

Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta were acquitted of conspiracy in federal court last spring. Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr., were convicted in August. Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks pleaded guilty.

The six were accused of training and planning to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home in 2020 to ignite a civil war, known to anti-government extremists as the “boogaloo.” The FBI, however, had undercover agents and informants inside the group and broke it up.

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White reported from Detroit.

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October 10, 2022
Ex-Oath Keeper: Group leader claimed Secret Service contact

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WASHINGTON — Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes told a member of the extremist group before the 2020 election that he had a contact in the Secret Service, a witness testified Thursday in Rhodes’ Capitol riot trial.

John Zimmerman, who was part of the North Carolina chapter, told jurors that Rhodes claimed to have a Secret Service agent’s number and to have spoken with the agent about the logistics of a September 2020 rally that then-President Donald Trump held in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

The claim came on the third day of testimony in the case against Rhodes and four others charged with seditious conspiracy for what authorities have described as a detailed, drawn-out plot to stop the transfer of power from Trump to Democrat Joe Biden, who won the election.

Zimmerman could not say for sure that Rhodes was speaking to someone with the Secret Service — only that Rhodes told him he was — and it was not clear what they were discussing. Zimmerman said Rhodes wanted to find out the “parameters” that the Oath Keepers could operate under during the election-year rally.

The significance of the detail in the government’s case is unclear. Rhodes, from Granbury, Texas, and and the others are accused of spending weeks plotting to use violence in a desperate campaign to keep Trump in the White House.

Trump’s potential ties to extremist groups have been a focus of the House committee investigating the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Another Oath Keeper expected to testify against Rhodes has claimed that after the riot, Rhodes phoned someone seemingly close to Trump and made a request: tell Trump to call on militia groups to fight to keep him in power. Authorities have not identified that person; Rhodes’ lawyer says the call never happened.

A Secret Service spokesperson said the agency is aware that “individuals from the Oath Keepers have contacted us in the past to make inquiries.” The agency said that when creating a security plan for events, it is “not uncommon for various organizations to contact us concerning security restrictions and activities that are permissible in proximity to our protected sites.”

The others on trial are Thomas Caldwell of Berryville, Virginia; Kenneth Harrelson of Titusville, Florida; Jessica Watkins of Woodstock, Ohio; and Kelly Meggs of Dunnellon, Florida. The trial is expected to last several weeks.

Authorities say the Oath Keepers organized paramilitary training and stashed weapons with “quick reaction force” teams at a Virginia hotel in case they were needed before members stormed the Capitol alongside hundreds of other Trump supporters.

Jurors also heard testimony from a man who secretly recorded a Nov. 9, 2020, conference call held by Rhodes in which the leader rallied his followers to prepare for violence and go to Washington.

The man, Abdullah Rasheed, said he began recording the call with hundreds of Oath Keepers members because Rhodes’ rhetoric made it sound like “we were going to war with the United States government.”

Rasheed said he tried to get in touch with authorities, including the U.S. Capitol Police and the FBI, about the call but that no one called him back until “after it all happened.” An FBI agent has testified that the bureau received a tip about the call in November 2020, and when asked if the FBI ever conducted an interview, he said ”not to my knowledge.” The man contacted the FBI again in March 2021, was interviewed and gave authorities the recording of the call.

Rhodes’ lawyers have said the Oath Keepers leader will testify that his actions leading up to Jan. 6 were in preparation for orders he believed were coming from Trump, but never did. Rhodes has said he believed Trump was going to invoke the Insurrection Act and call up a militia to support his bid to hold power.

The defense says the Oath Keepers often set up quick reaction forces for events but they were only to be used to protect against violence from antifa activists or in the event Trump invoked the Insurrection Act.

Zimmerman, the former Oath Keeper from North Carolina, described getting a quick reaction force ready for the “Million MAGA March” in Washington on Nov. 14, 2020, in case Trump invoked the Insurrection Act. Thousands of Trump supporters that day gathered at Freedom Plaza along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to rally behind Trump’s false election claims.

Zimmerman told jurors that the Oath Keepers stashed at least a dozen rifles and several handguns in his van parked at Arlington National Cemetery to serve as the quick reaction force. He said they never took the guns into Washington.

Zimmerman wasn’t in the city on Jan. 6 because he was recovering from the coronavirus and he said that after the Nov. 14 event, the North Carolina Oath Keepers split from Rhodes. Zimmerman said the split came over Rhodes’ suggestion that the Oath Keepers wear disguises to entice antifa activists to attack them so the Oath Keepers could give them a “beat down.”

Zimmerman said Rhodes suggested dressing up as older people or mothers pushing strollers and putting weapons in the stroller.

“I told him ‘No, that’s not what we do,’” Zimmerman said. “That’s entrapment. That’s illegal.”

In a separate case on Thursday, Jeremy Joseph Bertino of North Carolina became the first member of the Proud Boys extremist group to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 attack. Three Oath Keeper members have also pleaded guilty to the charge.

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For full coverage of the Capitol riot, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege

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October 7, 2022
2nd man convicted in Whitmer plot gets 4 years in prison

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A man who pleaded guilty to conspiring to kidnap Michigan’s governor in 2020 was granted a major break Thursday and sentenced to four years in prison.

Kaleb Franks was rewarded for testifying for prosecutors at two trials. His sentence was longer than the term given to another man who was the first to plead guilty but it still carried a significant benefit.

Franks “made the right decision and came clean. That’s encouraging,” U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker said.

Franks was among six anti-government extremists who were charged in federal court with conspiracy and other crimes. Investigators said the group’s goal was to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and incite a U.S. civil war — the “boogaloo” — before the 2020 presidential election.

“I would like to start by saying I’m sorry to the governor and her family,” Franks said in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“I understand that this experience had to have been very traumatizing and difficult,” he said. “I’m ashamed and embarrassed of my actions, and I regret every decision that I made.”

The group considered Whitmer, a Democrat, and other elected officials to be tyrants who were infringing on constitutional rights, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when businesses were shut down, people were told to stay home and schools were closed.

Franks, 28, participated in a key step in the conspiracy: a ride on a rainy night to scout Whitmer’s vacation home in northern Michigan. She was not there at the time.

He testified that he had hoped to be killed by police if a kidnapping could be pulled off at some point. The FBI, however, had undercover agents and informants inside the group.

“I was going to be an operator,” Franks said last spring. “I would be one of the people on the front line, so to speak, using my gun.”

Prosecutors said Franks’ cooperation was important because it backed up critical testimony from Ty Garbin, who pleaded guilty a year earlier and was sentenced to just 2 1/2 years in prison.

“It really was invaluable to have the testimony of an insider,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler told the judge, referring to Franks.

When the hearing began, his sentencing guidelines suggested a minimum prison term of 12 years. But Jonker reduced the range at the government’s request and settled on a much lower figure. Franks will get credit for two years in custody.

An email seeking comment was sent to Whitmer’s staff. In August, after the convictions of ringleaders Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr., she said the plot was a “disturbing extension of radicalized domestic terrorism.” Two other men, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta, were acquitted in April.

“They didn’t just want to kidnap her,” Kessler said in court Thursday. “The plot that Mr. Fox and Mr. Croft really wanted to do was to put (Whitmer) on trial, kill her and begin a second civil war. What’s really frightening about that is just how prevalent those kind of views have become.”

Meanwhile, 120 miles (190 kilometers) away in Jackson, Michigan, a jury heard a second day of testimony in the trial of three members of a paramilitary group who were also arrested in 2020. Joe Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar are not charged with directly participating in the plot but are accused of assisting Fox and others.

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White reported from Detroit.

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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez

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October 6, 2022
Jurors to begin hearing Jan. 6 Oath Keepers sedition case

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors will lay out their case against the founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates charged in the most serious case to reach trial yet in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.

Opening statements are expected Monday in Washington’s federal court in the trial of Stewart Rhodes and others charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a weekslong plot to stop the transfer of power from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden.

Defense attorneys will also get their first chance to address jurors, who were chosen last week after days of questioning over their feelings about the insurrection, Trump supporters and other matters.

The stakes are high for the Justice Department, which last secured a seditious conspiracy conviction at trial nearly 30 years ago.

About 900 people have been charged and hundreds convicted in the Capitol attack. Rioters stormed past police barriers, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with officers, smashed windows and halted the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

But the Oath Keepers are the first to stand trial on seditious conspiracy, a rare Civil War-era charge that carries up to 20 years behind bars. The trial is expected to last several weeks.

Prosecutors will tell jurors that the insurrection for the antigovernment group was not a spontaneous outpouring of election-fueled rage but part of a drawn-out plot to stop Biden from entering the White House.

On trial with Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, are Kelly Meggs, leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers; Kenneth Harrelson, another Florida Oath Keeper; Thomas Caldwell, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer from Virginia; and Jessica Watkins, who led an Ohio militia group. They face several other charges as well.

Authorities say Rhodes began plotting to overturn Biden’s victory just days after the election. Court records show the Oath Keepers repeatedly warning of the prospect of violence — or “a bloody, bloody civil war,” as Rhodes said in one call — if Biden were to become president.

By December, authorities say, Rhodes and the Oath Keepers had set their sights on Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6.

The Oath Keepers organized trainings — including one in “unconventional warfare” — and stashed weapons at a Virginia hotel so they could get them into the capital quickly if necessary, prosecutors say. Over several days in early January, Rhodes spent an $15,500 on guns, including an AR-platform rifle, magazines, mounts, sights and other equipment, according to court documents.

On Jan. 6, Oath Keepers equipped with communication devices, helmets, vests and other battle gear were seen on camera storming the Capitol. Rhodes is not accused of going inside, but telephone records show he was communicating with Oath Keepers who did enter around the time of the riot and he was seen with members outside afterward.

And prosecutors say the plot didn’t end on Jan. 6. In the days between the riot and Biden’s inauguration, Rhodes spent more than $17,000 on firearm parts, magazines, ammunition and other items, prosecutors say. Around the time of the inauguration, Rhodes told others to organize local militias to oppose the Democratic administration, authorities say.

“Patriots entering their own Capitol to send a message to the traitors is NOTHING compared to what’s coming,” Rhodes wrote in a message the evening of Jan. 6.

Defense attorneys have said the Oath Keepers came to Washington only to provide security at events for figures such as Trump ally Roger Stone before the president’s big outdoor rally behind the White House. Rhodes has said there was no plan to attack the Capitol and that the members who did acted on their own.

Rhodes’ lawyers are poised to argue that jurors cannot find him guilty of seditious conspiracy because all the actions he took before Jan. 6 were in preparation for orders he anticipated from Trump — orders that never came.

Rhodes’ attorney has said that his client will eventually take the stand to argue that he believed Trump was going to invoke the Insurrection Act and call up a militia, which Rhodes had been calling on him to do to stop Biden from becoming president. Rhodes’ attorneys will argue that what prosecutors have alleged was an illegal conspiracy was merely lobbying the president to use a U.S. law.

Prosecutors say Rhodes’ own words show he was going to act regardless of what Trump did. In one message from December 2020, Rhodes wrote that Trump “needs to know that if he fails to act, then we will.”

The last successful seditious conspiracy case was against an Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, and nine followers convicted in a plot to blow up the United Nations, the FBI’s building, and two tunnels and a bridge linking New York and New Jersey.

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For full coverage of the Capitol riot, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege

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October 3, 2022