By Phoebe Miller
Westport, Connecticut
Families of victims in the Sandy Hook shooting rejected a settlement offer by Alex Jones who claimed that the shooting–which killed 20 children–was a hoax.
Jones, the host of a far-right radio show, was found guilty in a defamation case when families of eight of the shooting victims sued Jones for his false allegations. He was also found concealing evidence needed for the cases against him.
In late March, Jones offered to pay the families $120,000 per plaintiff in exchange for the lawsuit to be resolved; this settlement was swiftly rejected by all plaintiffs.
The rejection marks the strong stance the families have continued to hold against Jones throughout the case. In a statement, the plaintiffs expressed dismay at the offer by Jones.
“The so-called offer is a transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs and the memory of their loved ones lost at Sandy Hook,” they said.
Jones had also recently been fined large amounts of money for failure to show up to his court deposition, claiming he was too sick to attend them; however, he was back in his studio days after he failed to attend the hearing recording his show.
The claims that Jones made led to his listeners threatening the families of the victims, and reportedly increased the amount of fans that Jones had.
“We have claimed that the financial records, in combination with web traffic data, would show exactly that — that he has profited from false claims that Sandy Hook is a hoax,” Chris Mattei, one of the lawyers on the families’ legal team, said, according to The New York Times.
