Jones missed both days of a scheduled deposit Wednesday and Thursday in Austin, Texas, where Jones and Infowars are based. He reported a health problem involving vertigo and revealed on Friday that it was a vaginal infection. After failing to appear Wednesday on the advice of his doctors, Connecticut Judge Barbara Bellis ordered him to appear on Thursday, noting that he was not hospitalized and had appeared in person on his show on Tuesday.
Bellis did not immediately rule on the new arrest warrant. He rejected a similar proposal from the family’s lawyer seeking an arrest warrant after Jones did not appear Wednesday. He has scheduled a teleconference hearing for Wednesday next week.
The family’s lawyers filed a motion late Friday afternoon demanding that Jones be arrested and remanded in custody pending trial, fined $ 25,000 to $ 50,000 a day until he completes his interrogation, is in contempt of court and pay his expenses. traveling to Austin this week.
“Plaintiffs have been subjected to hours and hours of painful interrogation by Mr. Jones’s attorneys – and Mr. Jones is sick when it is his turn to tell the truth under oath,” wrote Alinor Sterling, one of the family’s attorneys. the movement.
Jones’s lawyer, Norman Patis, described the request as “an unprecedented breach” and expressed concern about the fairness, in an email to the Associated Press.
Earlier Friday, Jones said on his Web site that it was “absolutely absurd” that family lawyers were trying to arrest him because he lost a testimony due to illness. He said the family’s lawyers had delayed testimony in the case several times and did not complain.
In November, Belis found Jones responsible for compensation, and his testimony is now being sought in a lawsuit pending later this year to determine the amount he should pay to the families.
Twenty elementary school students and six educators were killed in a 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. The families of eight of the victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school have sued Jones, Infowars and others in Connecticut, saying they have been harassed and threatened with death by Jones fans over the show’s prank conspiracy. Jones has since said he believes the shooting happened.
Jones has also been held liable for damages in similar lawsuits filed in Texas by relatives of Sandy Hook victims, and is also facing trial later this year.
Jones returned to the Infowars studio on Friday for the first time since Tuesday and revealed on the show that medical tests showed he had a vaginal infection. He said he felt dizzy and his doctors initially thought he had a serious heart problem and advised him to stay home and not go to the dump.
