Judge orders Alex Jones and Infowars to pay $100,000 in Sandy Hook legal fees

In a Dec. 20 ruling, Judge Scott Jenkins of Travis County District Court said that Mr. Jones and his lawyer intentionally disregarded an October court order to produce witnesses and other materials to the plaintiff in the lawsuit, Neil Heslin.

Judge Jenkins said the defense’s failure to cooperate “should be treated as contempt of court.” In two separate orders issued the same day, the judge told Mr. Jones to pay $65,825 and $34,323 in lawyer fees incurred by Mr. Heslin. He also denied Mr. Jones’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which argues that Mr. Jones and Infowars defamed Mr. Heslin by calling his account of his son’s death a lie.

Mr. Heslin lost his son, Jesse Lewis, 6, in the December 2012 shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which a heavily-armed gunman killed 20 first graders and six educators before taking his own life.