A Connecticut jury will decide how much money Alex Jones owes for spreading the lie that the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown didn’t happen. The trial began Tuesday in Waterbury, only 18 miles from Newtown, where 26 people were killed in 2012. Jones’ attorneys say his comments, which he now admits were wrong, were protected speech.
On Tuesday, a sister of a teacher killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre and an FBI agent who responded to the school shooting became overwhelmed with emotion as they described what it has been like to be accused of being crisis actors by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and others.
Carlee Soto Parisi said she has been hounded, both in Connecticut and after she moved to North Carolina, by those who believe she was acting. Some of the hoax believers went online and posted photos of grieving women, including an Associated Press photo of a distraught Soto Parisi outside Sandy Hook Elementary School after the shooting, saying they were the same actor.
“I frequently got threatening emails and messages on all social media,” she testified, crying at times. “And it got to a point where they would use the gun emoji. And I spoke with cops in Connecticut and my husband ended up having to speak with cops in North Carolina, because we were scared for our lives.”
Day two of the trial is today.
This story contains information from the Associated Press.