Alex Jones says he can’t get fair trial in Fairfield County

Conservative commentator Alex Jones speaks outside the hearing room prior to testimony by Google CEO Sundar Pichai during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, December 11, 2018. - less Conservative commentator Alex Jones speaks outside the hearing room prior to testimony by Google CEO Sundar Pichai during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, December 11, ... more Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Alex Jones says he can’t get fair trial in Fairfield County 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

NEWTOWN — Conspiracy extremist Alex Jones can’t get a fair trial in Fairfield County because of adverse news coverage here, says a lawyer defending him against three defamation lawsuits by Sandy Hook families.

“While the ability to receive a fair trial in this county was questionable from the start, this pretrial publicity has ensured that (Jones) will not ever be able to receive a fair trial in Fairfield County,” said Jones’ attorney Jay Wolman in a motion filed in state Superior Court in Bridgeport.

Jones wants to have his court cases moved as far from Sandy Hook as possible — to Windham County, in the northeastern corner of Connecticut, the motion states.

“Children and educators were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, understandably scarring and causing extraordinary grief throughout the community,” Jones’ lawyer argues. “People who have lived this close to such a horrific tragedy cannot be expected to think about it unemotionally, particularly when an attorney representing its victims is directly and falsely accusing third parties (in this case, Defendants) of callously profiting from their grief.”

The lawyer is referring to Josh Koskoff, the attorney representing eight families of Sandy Hook shooting victims and an FBI agent. Koskoff has accused Jones of defaming them by arguing on his Texas-based web program InfoWars that the shooting was a hoax, and “inciting others to act on these malicious lies.”

The defamation lawsuits in Connecticut are separate from two lawsuits filed against Jones in Texas by parents of first-graders who were slain in the shooting. The parents accuse Jones of claiming the 2012 murder of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook School was “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax” and “completely fake with actors,” with “inside job written all over it.”

Jones has claimed in court that he no longer believes the worst crime in modern Connecticut history was faked, and that he has the right to have been wrong about it.

His attorney in Connecticut argues that news coverage has twisted the substance of the case against Jones.

“This case involves a high-profile crime, which is terribly upsetting to the residents of Fairfield County — few of whom have been untouched by the tragedy at Sandy Hook,” Wolman writes. “But this case is not about the crime; it is about the press’ right to question governmental and entrenched-media reporting about a crime and to investigate and express unpopular opinions about it.”

Chris Mattei, one of the lawyers representing the Sandy Hook families, said they would fight to keep the cases local.

“We will oppose this motion,” Mattei said in a prepared statement. “It is also hard to ignore the irony of a media personality bemoaning the extent of media coverage he attracts.”

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342