Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist makes his case in Danbury court

DANBURY - A conspiracy theorist who is trying to influence a lawsuit brought by two families of Sandy Hook massacre victims against Newtown and its school district gave his argument in court Monday about why his views should be heard by the judge.

The families’ attorney, Donald Papcsy, said he did not want to dignify what Shanley was arguing by responding.

Before the hearing, however, Papcsy said that as a Sandy Hook resident who grieved with neighbors on his block who lost loved ones in the massacre, Shanley’s views were disheartening and “unconscionable.”

“There is no evidence that anyone died at Sandy Hook,” conspiracy theorist William Brandon Shanley of New Haven told Superior Court Judge Dan Shaban during a mid-afternoon hearing in Danbury. “This is a manipulation of human consciousness to achieve a gun control agenda.”

“This is not the place for political statements,” said Shaban, who reminded Shanley a half dozen times that Shanley needed to focus his argument on what legal grounds the judge should allow him to present his views about a case that does not involve him.

Shanley wrote to the court earlier this summer for permission to argue that the slaying of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook School in 2012 was a “drill” staged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Shanley further argued in his mid-June letter to the court that the two families involved in the lawsuit had not in fact lost their boys in the worst crime in Connecticut history but were “crisis actors.”

The judge had a 20-minute exchange with Shanley and asked lawyers from both sides for their comments before closing the hearing and promising to issue a written ruling.

Newtown’s attorney, Monte Frank, said in court that he was exercising all the restraint he had not to respond point-by-point to Shanley’s conspiracy theory.

“The murders at Sandy Hook School occurred - I wish to God they hadn’t,” said Frank, who organizes a bicycle ride to Washington, D.C., each year in memory of the victims, and to raise awareness about gun violence solutions. “I pray every night that we could reverse it, but we can’t.”

Shanley, who introduced himself in court as a media analyst, is the third Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist to make headlines since the beginning of the year.

In April, a New York banker who was accused of angrily confronting the family of slain Sandy Hook teacher Victoria Soto and claiming the massacre never took place pleaded guilty to interfering with police, and is currently on probation.

In January, a university professor in Florida was fired after parents of a slain Sandy Hook first-grader complained that he had contacted them, demanding proof that their son ever lived.

The parents who complained, Veronique and Leonard Pozner, and another Sandy Hook family who lost a first-grade son in the massacre - Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin - are suing Newtown and the Newtown School District over inadequate security at the Sandy Hook School.

The suit is scheduled for a 2017 trial.

The families’ lawsuit against the town and school district is not to be confused with the higher-profile wrongful death lawsuit brought by families of 10 massacre victims against the maker of the gun used in the shooting. That lawsuit is scheduled for a 2018 trial.

rryser@newstimes.com; 203-731-3342