A judge threw out an attempt by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to dismiss a lawsuit filed against him by parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, HuffPost reported Thursday.
Judge Scott Jenkins of the 53rd District Court in Texas ruled that Jones’s Infowars must face the defamation lawsuit brought about by Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa.
Pozner and De La Rosa’s 6-year-old son Noah was one of 20 children and six adults killed by a gunman inside at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
{mosads} Court documents show that they say Jones has continually repeated false claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged and that the parents were involved in a cover-up.
He has called Sandy Hook families “crisis actors” and accused De La Rosa of faking an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, HuffPost reported.
“I’ve watched a lot of soap operas, and I’ve seen actors before,” Jones said in 2016. “And I know when I’m watching a movie and when I’m watching something real.”
Pozner and De La Rosa say they have received death threats ever since Jones called the shooting a hoax.
They’re seeking more than $1 million in damages.
Jones argued last month that the case should be dismissed because he was acting as a journalist during his coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting — comparing himself to the veteran journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who helped break the Watergate scandal.
“Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein relied on allegations from ‘Deep Throat’ to link the Nixon Administration to the Watergate break-in,” Jones’s lawyers wrote in filing for a dismissal.
“Such journalism, questioning official narratives, would be chilled if reporters were subject to liability if they turned out to be wrong.”
He was seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed under the Texas Citizens Participation Act that is intended to protect free speech rights against unwarranted attacks.
Jones is seeking more than $100,000 in court costs from the parents, Huff Post reported.
The lawsuit is one of two filed in April by Pozner, De La Rosa and Neil Heslin, the father of another Sandy Hook victim.