Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who this month was ordered to pay $965m (£854m) for falsely claiming the victims of the Connecticut school shooting were actors, is seeking a re-trial.
The right-winger alleged for years that the massacre at the school in Newtown was staged as part of a government plot to take away Americans’ guns.
A Connecticut jury ruled earlier in October Mr Jones should pay damages to numerous families, who said they suffered abusive comments, extreme emotional distress and rape and death threats as a result of the lies.
Mr Jones on Friday asked a Connecticut judge to throw out the verdict against him and order a new trial. His request claimed Judge Barbara Bellis’ pretrial rulings resulted in an unfair trial and “a substantial miscarriage of justice.”
Read more: Who is Alex Jones?
“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 complainants in the lawsuit against Jones, declined to comment on the filing.
US fighter jets scrambled to intercept two Russian bombers near Alaska
Inflation eased in US but the underlying picture is awful and there may be a fair deal of pain ahead
Gangsta’s Paradise rapper Coolio dead at 59
But he said he and other attorneys for the Sandy Hook families planned to file a brief opposing Jones’ request.
In recent years Jones admitted that the shooting did in fact take place, going on to condemn the lawsuits and trials on his Texas-based Infowars show as unfair and a violation of his right to free speech.
Twenty young primary school children and six staff died in the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School on 14 December 2012.
An FBI agent who responded to the shooting, along with relatives of eight children and adults killed in the massacre, sued Jones for defamation and infliction of emotional distress over his spreading the false narrative that the shooting was a hoax staged by “crisis actors” to impose more gun control.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Victims’ relatives recounted in often-emotional testimony during the trial that they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’ show.
Relatives recounted receiving death and rape threats. They told how strangers turned up at their homes to record them, confronted them in public and subjected them to abusive comments on social media.
The October verdict followed that of another jury in Texas that in August ordered Jones and his company to pay nearly $50m (£44m) in damages to the parents of another child killed in the mass shooting.
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.
