Court overturns suspension of Alex Jones’ attorney in Sandy Hook case that led to $1.4 billion judgment
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The trial judge suspended Pattis in January 2023, saying he failed to protect the families’ sensitive records in violation of a court order, which limited access to documents to lawyers in the Connecticut case .
Norm Pattis, attorney for Alex Jones, addresses the court during closing statements in Alex Jones’ Sandy Hook defamation damages lawsuit in Superior Court in Waterbury, Connecticut, October 6, 2022. H John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool, file
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut court on Thursday overturned a six-month suspension granted to a lawyer for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for improperly providing confidential documents, including the medical records of Jones, to Jones’ Texas lawyers. relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook attack. Shooting at an elementary school.
The state Court of Appeals ruled that a judge wrongly concluded that attorney Norman Pattis violated certain rules of professional conduct and ordered a new hearing before a different judge on possible sanctions. The court, however, upheld other findings of misconduct by the judge.
Pattis defended Jones against a lawsuit brought by many families of Sandy Hook victims that resulted in Jones being ordered to pay more than $1.4 billion in damages after a jury trial in Connecticut in October 2022.
The families sued Jones for defamation and emotional distress over his repeated claims that the 2012 Newtown, Conn., school shooting was a hoax. Twenty first graders and six educators were killed. The families said Jones’ supporters harassed and terrorized them.
Trial Judge Barbara Bellis suspended Pattis in January 2023, saying he failed to protect the families’ sensitive records in violation of a court order, which limited access to the documents to lawyers in the Connecticut affair. She called his actions an “abject failure” and “inexcusable.”
Pattis had argued there was no evidence he violated any rules of conduct and called the release of the documents an “innocent mistake.” His suspension was suspended pending review by the Court of Appeal.
“I am grateful to the appeals court committee,” Pattis said in a text message Thursday. “The Jones courtroom was unlike any other I had ever appeared in.”
Bellis and the state judiciary declined to comment through a spokesperson.
Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families turned over nearly 400,000 pages of documents to Pattis as part of the discovery in the Connecticut case, including about 4,000 pages containing the families’ medical records. Pattis’ office sent an external hard drive containing the files to another of Jones’ attorneys in Texas, at that lawyer’s request. The Texas attorney then shared it with another Jones attorney.
The records were never made public.
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