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Gabby Petito’s family seeks $50 million from Utah police department for inadequate response to Brian Laundrie’s abuse

Gabby Petito's family seeks $50 million from Utah police department for inadequate response to Brian Laundrie's abuse



CNN
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The family of Gabby Petito has submitted a $50 million claim against the Moab, Utah, Police Department, arguing the 22-year-old may not have been killed last year by her fiancé if officers had recognized he was the “true primary aggressor” in a domestic dispute about two weeks before her death.

Petito’s parents are seeking $50 million in damages, claiming Moab officers were negligent in failing to investigate Brian Laundrie, 23, and his “self-evidently false claims” and the department was negligent in failing to train officers to investigate domestic violence incidents, according to their notice of claim sent to the department Monday, the first step in initiating a lawsuit against it.

Additionally, Petito’s family claims her killing was caused by the wrongful acts or neglect of the police department and its officers.

Moab officers “failed to recognize the serious danger (Petito) was in and failed to investigate fully and properly,” Brian Stewart, an attorney for the family said Monday in a news conference, referencing the moment Moab police stopped Petito and Laundrie after a witness said he saw them involved in a domestic incident.

“They did not have the training that they needed to recognize the clear signs that were evident that morning: that Gabby was a victim and that she was in serious need of immediate help,” Stewart said.

A Moab city spokesperson declined to comment, saying, “The City does not comment on pending litigation.”

Petito, an aspiring travel influencer, vanished last summer on a cross-country road trip with Laundrie. As a nationwide search ensued, attention also turned to Laundrie, who returned home to Florida and vanished in a nature reserve.

Days into the search for Laundrie, Petito’s body was found in Grand Teton National Forest, and a coroner ruled she died by strangulation. Ella’s Laundrie’s body was found in mid-October in the nature reserve, along with a notebook in which she claimed responsibility for her death. A medical examiner determined he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The notice of claim against Moab police comes months after Petito’s mother and father, along with their respective spouses, sued Laundrie’s family, alleging his parents knew their son had killed Petito and were aware of “the whereabouts of her body.”

At the heart of Petito’s family’s claim is the traffic stop last August, which officers executed after being informed the witness “had seen Brian assault Gabby.”

Police pulled over their vehicle – a white Ford van – after it exceeded the speed limit, abruptly left its lane and struck a curb, according to a police report.

Footage recorded by police body cameras shows Moab police officers talking to Petito and Laundrie, who admitted to having a fight in which Petito said she struck her fiancé first. Officers noticed Petito had cuts on her face and her arm, and she “demonstrated how Brian had violently grabbed her face during their altercation,” telling police Laundrie “gets frustrated with me a lot.”

But Petito also “displayed the classic hallmarks of an abused partner,” the notice says, taking blame for the incident. The officers “did not press further,” the notice says.

According to the family’s claim, a photo taken at the time, which has not been made public, “shows a close-up view of Gabby’s face where blood is smeared on her cheek and left eye, revealing the violent nature of Brian’s attack.”

Laundry told police the couple had been under increasing stress. He has admitted to pushing Petito away from her when she tried to slap him and also to taking her phone from her, claiming he did not have one from her and was afraid that she would leave him. However, later in the interview, he took out his own phone and gave officers his number, the notice says.

Despite the cuts and Laundrie’s inconsistencies, one of the officers said Petito must be booked into jail since, under the domestic violence statutes of Utah, she was considered the primary aggressor and Laundrie the victim.

Both Petito and Laundrie objected, and the officers eventually agreed not to charge Petito as long as she and Laundrie agreed to spend the night apart.

“Roughly two weeks later, Brian brutally murdered Gabby,” the notice says, “leaving her body in the woods of Grand Teton National Forest.”

A review of the Moab Police Department’s handling of the incident by an independent investigator – a captain with the police department in Price, Utah, about 115 miles away – recommended the two officers who responded be placed on probation, saying they made “several unintentional mistakes ” – namely failing to cite anyone for domestic violence, though there appeared to be only sufficient evidence to charge Petito.

The investigative report, released in January, recommended new policies for the department, including additional domestic violence training and legal training for officers.

The city at the time did not address any potential discipline for the two officers but said it “intends to implement the report’s recommendations” on new policies for the police department, including additional domestic violence training and legal training for officers.

“Based on the report’s findings, the City of Moab believes our officers showed kindness, respect and empathy in their handling of this incident,” the city’s statement said.

Petito’s parents and stepparents did not comment on the litigation during Monday’s virtual news conference at the direction of their lawyers. But her mother de ella acknowledged the footage of the Moab incident was “very painful.”

“I wanted to jump through the screen, rescue her,” Nicole Schmidt said, encouraging victims of domestic violence to reach out for help.

Asked what the family wants the public to remember from Petito’s story, her father Joseph Petito, said people should learn there’s always a way out.

“Her legacy is to help people that don’t see a way out, and there are,” he said.

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Grand jury declines to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham in connection with kidnapping of Emmett Till

Grand jury declines to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham in connection with kidnapping of Emmett Till



CNN
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A grand jury in Mississippi has declined to indict the White woman who accused 14-year-old Emmett Till of making advances toward her nearly 70 years ago, allegations that led to the Black teen’s brutal death.

A Leflore County grand jury last week heard seven hours of testimony from investigators and witnesses but said there was insufficient evidence to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter, according to a statement from District Attorney Dewayne Richardson.

The grand jury heard the testimony from witnesses detailing the investigation of the case from 2004 to the present day and considered both charges, according to the statement.

“After hearing every aspect of the investigation and evidence collected regarding Donham’s involvement, the Grand Jury returned a ‘No Bill’ to the charges of both Kidnapping and Manslaughter,” the statement said. “The murder of Emmett Till remains an unforgettable tragedy in this country and the thoughts and prayers of this nation continue to be with the family of Emmett Till.”

Carolyn Bryant, shown in September 1955 sitting in the office of her husbands' lawyer.

Family members of Emmett, whose killing in the Jim Crow-era South spurred the civil rights movement in America, said earlier this summer that they had unearthed an unserved arrest warrant for Bryant Donham, her late husband and his brother.

The warrant is dated August 29, 1955, and signed by the Leflore County clerk. The image of the warrant shows the current clerk certified the document as authentic on June 21.

A note on the back of the warrant says Bryant Donham was not arrested because she could not be located at the time, according to the New York Times, which cited filmmaker Keith A. Beauchamp, who was part of the team that discovered the warrant. CNN reached out to Bryant Donham at the time but didn’t hear back.

Emmett’s family had hoped the warrant would lead to charges and, ultimately, justice.

“Justice has to be served,” Emmett’s cousin Deborah Watts told CNN in late June, adding, “Emmett led us to it. I know that in my heart.”

CNN reached out Tuesday to Emmett’s family for comment but did not hear back.

While Emmett’s killing remains a touchstone moment in the United States’ long struggle with racial injustice and inequality, to this day, no one has been held criminally responsible.

Emmett, who lived in Chicago, was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he had his fateful encounter with then-20-year-old Carolyn Bryant in the summer of 1955. Accounts from that day differ, but witnesses alleged Emmett whistled at the woman at the market she owned with her husband in the town of Money.

Four days later, Roy Bryant and JW Milam later took Emmett from his bed in the middle of the night, ordered him into the back of a pickup and beat him before shooting him in the head and tossing his body into the Tallahatchie River.

But they were both acquitted of murder by an all-White jury following a trial in which Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett grabbed and verbally threatened her. The jury deliberated for barely an hour.

The men later admitted to the killing in a 1956 interview with Look magazine.

Emmett’s death captured attention far beyond Mississippi after a photo of his mutilated body was published in Jet Magazine and spread around the world. Her mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, had demanded he have an open-casket funeral so the entire world could see her son’s injuries and the results of racial terrorism – a decision that helped fuel the civil rights movement.

Milam died in 1980 and Bryant died in 1994. Bryant Donham is in her late 80s.

In 2007, a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict Bryant Donham on charges. And according to archived FBI documents, Milam and Roy Bryant were arrested on a kidnapping charge in 1955, but a grand jury failed to indict them. “The original court, District Attorney, and investigative records related to the 1955 investigation have apparently been lost,” the FBI said in a 2006 report.

Bryant Donham testified in 1955 that Emmett grabbed her hand, her waist and propositioned her, saying he had been with “White women before.” But years later, when professor Timothy Tyson raised that trial testimony in a 2008 interview with Bryant Donham, he claimed she told him, “That part’s not true.”

The prospect that the woman at the center of Emmett’s case had recanted her testimony – which the US Justice Department said in a memo would contradict statements she made during the state trial in 1955 and later to the FBI – sparked calls for authorities to investigate the case anew.

The DOJ, which had already re-examined and closed the case in 2007, reopened the probe into Emmett’s killing in 2018. But the case was closed in December after the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division concluded it could not prove Bryant Donham had lied. When questioned directly, Bryant Donham adamantly denied to investigators that she had recanted her testimony from her.

Emmett’s legacy, however, lives on: In March, President Joe Biden signed into law the landmark Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which made lynching a federal hate crime.

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New Yorker: Milley was set to excoriate Trump in unreleased resignation letter drafted after Lafayette Square photo-op



CNN
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In the wake of then-President Donald Trump’s infamous photo-op at the height of the George Floyd protests, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley penned a lengthy and vociferous critique of Trump in a resignation letter he ultimately never sent, The New Yorker reported on Monday.

On June 1, 2020, Milley accompanied Trump on a walk from the White House to St. John’s Church, where he was photographed wearing his combat uniform and moving with the President’s entourage through Lafayette Square. Protesters had been forcibly cleared out of the area minutes before.

The images provoked a swift wave of criticism from lawmakers and several senior former military officials who said they risked dragging the traditionally apolitical military into a contentious domestic political situation.

Milley’s letter was dated June 8, a week after the incident, according to The New Yorker. The article was based on “The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021,” a forthcoming book by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser.

“The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching, and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Milley wrote, according to The New Yorker. “It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military.”

In this June 1, 2020 file photo, President Donald Trump departs the White House to visit outside St. John's Church, in Washington. Walking behind Trump from left are, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The report said Milley sought advice regarding the resignation letter, including from former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford, retired Army Gen. James Dubik, an expert on military ethics, as well as members of Congress and former officials from the Bush and Obama administrations.

Milley ultimately decided not to quit.

“F*** that s***,” Milley told his staff, according to The New Yorker. “I’ll just fight him.”

“If they want to court-martial me, or put me in prison, have at it,” Milley added. “But I will fight from the inside.”

A spokesman for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs declined to comment to CNN about the report.

Milley would later publicly apologize for his involvement in the incident in a pre-recorded speech at the National Defense University.

“I should not have been there. My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics. As a commissioned uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from, and I sincerely hope we all can learn from it,” Milley said during the address.

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Alex Jones’ texts have been turned over to the January 6 committee, source says

Alex Jones' texts have been turned over to the January 6 committee, source says



CNN
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Approximately two years’ worth of text messages sent and received by right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones have been turned over to the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, a person familiar with the matter told CNN on Monday.

The messages were handed over to the committee by Mark Bankston, the attorney who represented two Sandy Hook parents who successfully sued Jones in Texas and won nearly $50 million in a civil trial that concluded last week.

Bankston would only tell CNN that he is “cooperating with the committee.” The select committee declined to comment.

During the trial, Bankston revealed that one of Jones’ lawyers had “messed up” and inadvertently sent him the two years of text messages. Bankston also said during the trial that the January 6 committee had expressed interest in the material.

Jones’ attorney Federico Andino Reynal asked the judge in the case to order Bankston to destroy the material and not transmit it to the House committee, but the judge declined.

“I’m not standing between you and Congress,” Judge Maya Guerra Gamble told Bankston when asked about sending Jones’ texts to the committee. “That is not my job. I’m not going to do that.”

The source wouldn’t provide details of the exact timeframe of when Jones sent and received the texts in question.

Jones was a central player on January 6. He was on restricted US Capitol grounds that day, riling up protesters, though he did not enter the building itself. He has rejected any suggestion that he was involved in the planning of violence, and claims he tried to prevent people at the Capitol from breaking the law.

Jones testified before the January 6 committee earlier this year, but he later said on his show that he repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent during the closed-door deposition.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who sits on the committee, said Sunday on CNN that the committee was still waiting to see the texts and was interested to learn more about Jones’ role in the events at the Capitol.

“Well, we know that his behavior did incentivize some of the January 6 conduct and we want to know more about that,” Lofgren said. “We don’t know what we’ll find in the texts because we haven’t seen them. But we’ll look at it and learn more, I’m sure.”

It is unclear if the Justice Department has received the texts as of Monday afternoon. A Justice Department spokesman did not comment to CNN about Jones’ texts.

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Alex Jones on trial: Jury finds Infowars founder should pay $45.2 million in punitive damages to Sandy Hook parents

Alex Jones on trial: Jury finds Infowars founder should pay $45.2 million in punitive damages to Sandy Hook parents


New York
CNN Business
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A Texas jury has decided to penalize Alex Jones with $45.2 million in punitive damages in a lawsuit filed by the parents of Sandy Hook shooting victim Jesse Lewis.

The award, which the judge could reduce, came one day after the jury settled on $4.1 million in compensatory damages.

The jurors began deliberating around 12:30 pm CT on Friday, after Judge Maya Guerra Gamble reminded them that in a default judgment against him Jones was already found liable for defamation and “intentional infliction of emotional distress” against Lewis’ parents, Scarlett Lewis and Neil Hesslin.

In an emotional closing argument Friday, Lewis and Heslin’s attorney Wesley Todd Ball said to the jury, “We ask that you send a very very simple message, and that is, stop Alex Jones. Stop the monetization of misinformation and lies. Por favor.”

Ball urged the jurors to “deter Alex Jones from ever doing this awfulness again” and “to deter others who may want to step into his shoes.”

Jones’ attorney, Federico Andino Reynal, argued for a far lower sum, suggesting that the jurors should multiply Jones’ purported earnings per hour of $14,000 and the 18 hours that he said Jones talked about Sandy Hook on Infowars, for a sum of around a quarter million dollars.

On Thursday, in the first phase of the trial, the jury awarded the parents $4.1 million in compensatory damages, a far smaller amount than the $150 million the parents’ attorneys had sought. In his closing argument, Ball thanked the jury for their decision to award the $4.1 million, saying it had already made a huge difference in the parents’ lives, and asked them to award enough in punitive damages to bring the total to $150 million.

Bernard Pettingill testifying on August 5.

Punitive damages are a form of punishment for a defendant’s behavior. Jones, the head of the conspiratorial media outlet Infowars, repeatedly lied about the Sandy Hook massacre. I have stoked conspiracy theories about the victims and their families, prompting multiple defamation lawsuits. He has since acknowledged that the mass shooting occurred.

Jones claimed in his testimony that a jury award of just $2 million would destroy him financially. But on Friday morning the jurors heard testimony about Jones’ wealth from an economist, Bernard Pettingill, Jr., who estimated Jones has a net worth of between $135 million and $270 million.

Pettingill, Jr., who examined several years of records for Jones and Infowars’ parent Free Speech Systems, said Jones used a series of shell companies to hide his money.

Jones used two large loans to make it appear he was broke when in fact he was not, Pettingill, Jr. testified.

“Alex Jones knows where the money is, he knows where that money went and he knows that he is going to eventually benefit by that money,” Pettingill, Jr. said.

After one of the jurors asked about the difference between Jones’ money and his company’s money, Pettingill, Jr. said “you cannot separate Alex Jones from the companies. He is the companies.”

Jones “monetized his shtick,” he added, even suggesting that Jones could teach a college course about his techniques.

Jones’ fear-mongering rants on Infowars have, for many years, been paired with ads for supplements, documentaries, and other products Infowars sells. Pettingill, Jr. said the money poured in, identifying nine different companies that are owned by Jones.

“He is a very successful man, he has promulgated some hate speech and some misinformation, but he made a lot of money and he monetized that,” Pettingill, Jr. said on the stand. “My thinking about him is he didn’t ride a wave, he created the wave.”

Jones testified earlier in the week about his alleged financial troubles after social media giants like Facebook and Twitter banned his content from their platforms.

“I remember him saying that, but the records don’t reflect that,” Pettingill, Jr said.

During closing arguments, Ball asserted that Jones has even more money hidden away in other places and argued that $4.1 million was a drop in Jones’ proverbial bucket. “He’s probably already made it back in donations” from fans, Ball said.

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Parkland shooting trial: Jurors to visit Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School today

Parkland shooting trial: Jurors to visit Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School today



CNN
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Jurors from the sentencing portion of the trial for the gunman who killed 17 people are expected to visit the scene of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s 1200 building in Parkland, Florida, on Thursday.

The building on the school’s campus has remained sealed since the February 2018 shooting to preserve it for the trial. A new building that opened in 2020 has taken on the role of the structure, which officials have said will be torn down.

The visit is meant to help jurors analyze the evidence presented in the trial so far, Judge Elizabeth Scherer explained.

The judge instructed jurors Wednesday to “avoid touching, manipulating or moving anything.” She also told them to explore the scene on their own and at their own pace, moving as a group from floor to floor.

“Nothing will be explained or pointed out to you,” the judge’s instructions said. Jurors have also been told to avoid speaking to anyone until the viewing is complete.

Jurors will not be allowed to have a smart phone, smart watch or any type of camera, during the jury view. In court, attorneys encouraged the judge to ask jurors to wear closed-toe shoes because they could encounter glass on the floor.

The current phase of the trial is to determine gunman Nikolas Cruz’s sentence: Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, while Cruz’s defense attorneys are asking the jury for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. To recommend a death sentence, jurors must be unanimous. If they do so, the judge could choose to follow the recommendation or sentence Cruz to life instead.

Cruz is not expected to be at the crime scene.

Following the visit, some impact statements are expected in court, the judge said.

Wednesday was the third day of victim impact testimony in the trial of Cruz, who pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for the shooting.

Much of the testimony in the Broward County court – particularly from the parents of the 14 students killed – has focused on all the things the victims and their families will never get to do and the irreparable damage to their everyday lives.

“Our family is broken. There is this constant emptiness,” said Max Schachter, the father of 14-year-old Alex, who loved chocolate chip cookies, playing the trombone and video games.

“I feel I can’t truly be happy if I smile,” Schachter said Wednesday. “I know that behind that smile is the sharp realization that part of me will always be sad and miserable because Alex isn’t here.”

The loss of her daughter Meadow Pollack, 18, has “destroyed” Shara Kaplan’s life, she told the jury Tuesday, “and my capability of ever living a productive existence.” To articulate how her daughter’s death de ella impacted her de ella, she said, she would have to rip out her heart de ella and show them how it had shattered into a million pieces.

And the Hoyer family will never be the same. “We were a family unit of five always trying to fit into a world set up for even numbers,” said Tom Hoyer, whose 15-year-old son Luke – the youngest of three – was killed. “Two-, four-, six-seat tables in a restaurant. Two-, four-, six-ticket packages to events. Things like that.”

But the Hoyers are no longer a family of five, and “never again will the world feel right, now that we’re a family of four,” Hoyer said.

“When Luke died something went missing in me,” he said. “And I’ll never, never get over that feeling.”

To make their sentencing decision, jurors will hear prosecutors and defense attorneys argue aggravating factors and mitigating circumstances – reasons Cruz should or should not be executed.

The victim impact statements add another layer, giving the families and friends of the victims their own day in court, though the judge told the jury the statements are not meant to be weighed as aggravating factors.

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Restructuring officer for Alex Jones’ business questioned about tens of millions withdrawn from company

Restructuring officer for Alex Jones' business questioned about tens of millions withdrawn from company



CNN Business
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The accountant now in charge of overseeing right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ company Free Speech Systems through its bankruptcy was questioned Wednesday by attorneys for families of Sandy Hook shooting victims over $62 million in funds Jones has drawn from the company over the years.

Free Speech Systems, which runs Jones’ conspiratorial outlet Infowars, filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday, amid proceedings in two states to determine how much Jones owes in damages to families of Sandy Hook victims over his false claims that the shooting was a hoax and they had not actually gone through the experience of losing a child in it.

Marc Schwartz testified he signed a contract to take over as Chief Restructuring Officer for the company in June and now controls all bank accounts, payroll and hiring decisions. Schwartz testified that Jones withdrew about $62 million dollars from the company over 14 years, and testified that $30 million of those withdrawals was paid to the IRS.

Schwartz also testified during the hearing, which ran for more than six hours, that Infowars received about $9 million in cryptocurrency donations and that “they went directly to Mr. Jones.”

Schwartz said during his testimony that Free Speech Systems should be allowed to use cash it has on hand to be able to pay vendors, saying otherwise it will have to shut down.

“If we can’t pay the critical vendors then we will be shut down,” Schwartz said. “The company’s in a situation right now where there’s not a whole lot of breathing room.”

US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said Wednesday he would not allow more withdrawals moving forward and that he found some of Schwartz’s testimony “troubling.”

Court documents filed Friday as part of Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy showed the company has between $10 million and $50 million in estimated assets and between $50 million and $100 million in estimated liabilities. An attorney for Free Speech Systems said at the hearing Wednesday that the company has about $1.3 million cash on hand.

Schwartz stressed the importance of being able to pay vendors that allow the company to broadcast and sell products online, saying that when Jones is not on the air discussing products he sells, the company sees a 30% drop in sales.

“If we can’t broadcast, we can’t sell,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz testified the management structure of Free Speech Systems was not set up the way a successful business should be managed.

“There is Alex and then there is everybody else,” Schwartz testified.

Schwartz said accounting controls were, as far as he could tell after taking control of the company, “nonexistent,” that the people responsible for maintaining the company’s books did not have accounting degrees and that there had been no financial reports produced in at least 18 months when he took over.

Lawyers homed in on Jones’ salary under the bankruptcy plan, saying documents showed Jones’ salary before the bankruptcy was $625,000 a year, and under a restructuring plan, it would amount to about $1.3 million. Schwartz said Jones’ salary could be considered reasonable because of his value to the company.

“Who is more valuable? Nobody,” Schwartz said. Lopez authorized a lower salary for Jones to be paid, of about $20,000 every other week.

When asked how much the company had spent on legal expenses related to the Sandy Hook lawsuits, Schwartz said company records show at least $4.5 million have been spent between 2018 and 2021, but that he does not believe that number is accurate.

Schwartz also testified that Jones used a company-associated American Express card to pay for personal expenses, including housekeeping charges, regularly in the past 18 months. The card had $300,000 a month in charges, but Schwartz said accounting staff did not label what the charges were for.

“We can’t tell you whether it’s for electricity, entertainment or electronic supplies for the production studio,” Schwartz said.

Lopez said he would not authorize the current American Express bill of about $172,000 to be paid.

Schwartz said he didn’t know who Jones was before being hired, and that he doesn’t agree with many of Jones’ views but occasionally consults with him on matters involving the business.

Three smaller companies tied to Jones declared bankruptcy earlier this year, briefly pausing the suits against Jones. But the families suing him dropped those companies from their lawsuits so that the cases could move forward against only Jones and Free Speech Systems. Shortly after, the companies exited bankruptcy protection.

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Alex Jones on trial: Sandy Hook parents testify about the ‘hell’ he has caused

Alex Jones on trial: Sandy Hook parents testify about the 'hell' he has caused


New York
CNN Business
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The parents of a child who was murdered during the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting delivered emotional testimony in a Texas court on Tuesday, telling a jury that the lies pushed by right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones have stained the legacy of their son and tormented them for years.

The jury hearing the case will determine how much in damages Jones will have to pay the parents, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, who won a default judgment against him earlier this year. An attorney representing Heslin and Lewis asked the jury last week to award Heslin and Lewis $150 million.

Fighting back tears at times, Heslin told the jury that Jones, through his conspiratorial media organization Infowars, “tarnished the honor and legacy” of his son. Heslin said that he couldn’t “even begin to describe the last nine-and-a-half years of hell” he has endured because of Jones.

“There’s got to be a strong deterrent that shall prevent him from peddling this propaganda,” Heslin said, adding that through his testimony he wanted “to restore my credibility, my reputation, and Jesse’s legacy that he so much deserves.”

As Heslin testified, a television screen in the court showed a photograph of his murdered son, six-year-old Jesse Lewis. Jones, who is expected to testify in his own defense later on Tuesday, was absent from the courtroom during Heslin’s testimony and the first part of Lewis’ testimony. Heslin called that absence “a cowardly act.”

“I’ve been here for a week and a half and [during] my final testimony Mr. Alex Jones does not have the courage to sit in front of me or face me,” Heslin said.

An attorney representing Heslin and Lewis told CNN the two have needed to be in isolation and under the protection of professional security during the trial.

Heslin also said on the stand that the lie pushed by Jones “resonates around the world” and that he has realized “how dangerous” it is.

Heslin described being repeatedly confronted by those who believed Jones over the last ten years, saying such interactions occur “right up to this day.”

“My life has been threatened,” Heslin said. “I fear for my life. I fear for my safety and my family’ safety and their life.”

Lewis also testified in court that she has been harassed and received death threats, including at her own home, all of which she said reopens the wounds surrounding her son’s murder.

“The fear and anxiety and unsafeness … keeps me from healing,” Lewis said. “It definitely negatively impacts the healing process.”

Lewis described the conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook as “deeply unsettling.”

“I feel compromised,” Lewis said, describing how she feels about her own personal safety.

Roy Lubit, a forensic psychiatrist who was hired to conduct an examination of Heslin and Lewis, testified to the court on Monday how terrified and worried for their personal safety the two parents are.

Neil Heslin, the parent of a Sandy Hook victim, took the stand today in the Alex Jones defamation trial taking place in Texas.

Lubit told the court that Lewis and Heslin “are very, very frightened.” When asked to specify who they are frightened of, Lubit responded, “Some follower of Jones trying to kill them.”

Lubit elaborated that Lewis sleeps with a gun, a knife, and pepper spray on her night stand. Lubit added she won’t even turn on the air conditioning during hot days for fear of not being able to hear an intruder possibly coming to hurt her.

Lewis testified Tuesday that she owns a gun to keep her other son safe, telling the jury that she failed to keep one son safe and will do everything in her power to ensure that no harm happens to her other child.

Jury selection for a similar trial involving Jones and Sandy Hook families commenced on Tuesday in Connecticut, where Jones was also found liable for damages earlier this year.

Jones has lashed out at the judicial proceedings taking place, baselessly claiming last week that he was being tried in Texas before a “kangaroo court.” Infowars has also published content attacking the judges overseeing the cases in viscous terms.

Jones’ media company, Free Speech Systems, which is the company that operates Infowars, filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday.

Attorneys representing some Sandy Hook families have accused Jones of having drained Free Speech Systems of assets in recent years as part of an effort to protect himself from potential judgments he may be ordered to pay.

One of the attorneys, Avi Moshenberg, told CNN on Tuesday that the bankruptcy filing made by Free Speech Systems indicated that $62 million in assets had been withdrawn from the company in 2021 and 2022.

“If you look at the bankruptcy filing, leading up to the declaration of bankruptcy, Alex Jones, the sole owner [of Free Speech Systems], took $62 million in draws in 2021 and 2022,” Moshenberg told CNN. “Just straight up draws. That’s why the company has few assets.”

A lawyer representing Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday morning. But a hearing is scheduled on Wednesday in which W. Marc Schwartz, the chief restructuring officer for Free Speech Systems, is expected to testify.

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