Depositions & Trials - Deposition of Timothy Fruge, January 14, 2022

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Jan. 14, 2022 - Depositions & Trials

04:50:03

Deposition of Timothy Fruge, January 14, 2022

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Time	Text
	Good morning.
	Today is Friday, January 14th, 2022.
	My name is Lauren Morris.
	I'm the videographer today for the deposition of Timothy Frug, cause X06U, W-Y-C-V, 1860-46436S.
	And the time is now 901 a.m. and we are on the record.
	Hey, my name is Christy Cordy Pass A CSR number 6222.
	The witness is located in Austin, Texas.
	I am located in Flower Mountain, Texas, and I am taking this down by stenographic means.
	Sir, if you just raise, I'm sorry, let me get appearances for the record.
	Yes, good morning.
	This is Chris Matty on behalf of the plaintiffs.
	Hi, good morning.
	This is Jay Woolman of Brandon Delson Legal Group, four defendants Alex Jones, Free Speech Systems LLC, InfoWars LLC, Infowars Health LLC, and Prison Planet TV LLC.
	Good morning.
	This is Mario Sarami for Defendant Genesis Communication Network Incorporated from Brigham, Bush, and Lewis.
	Okay, sir, if you just raise your right hand, Mr. Fruges, I'll swear you in it.
	Do you sell and swear that the testimony you hear today will be the truth, told truth, and nothing but the truth?
	So happy yet.
	I do.
	Thank you.
	We can begin.
	Thank you.
	Good morning, sir.
	Good morning.
	Can you tell me the correct pronunciation of your last name, please?
	It's Fruget.
	Thank you.
	Mr. Fruget, my name is Chris Maddie.
	I represent the plaintiffs in this matter.
	You and I previously met earlier in this litigation when we took your deposition for a limited purpose in Austin, Texas.
	Do you recall that?
	I do recall that, yes, sir.
	Today we're taking your deposition remotely pursuant to an agreement between the parties and the rules in Connecticut and Texas permitting remote depositions in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
	Do you understand that, sir?
	Yes, sir.
	Do you have any objection to that?
	No, sir.
	Mr. Fruget, where are you located this morning?
	I am in Austin, Texas.
	Is anybody in the room with you?
	There is the videographer that is in the room with me.
	Okay.
	Nobody else?
	No one else.
	If at any point, Mr. Fruget, you don't understand a question I asked you today, please ask me to rephrase it or let me know that you're not following the question and I'll try to rephrase it to make sure you understand what I'm asking, okay?
	Okay.
	The court reporter can't take down nonverbal cues like nods or gestures, so please try to answer verbally to all my questions, okay?
	Yes.
	Thank you.
	And, you know, in the normal course of conversation, it's normal for people to say mm-hmm or something like that.
	And I might get what you mean, but because you haven't verbalized your answer, the court reporter may not be able to take it down.
	So please try and make sure you answer with yes or no or a verbal response that the court reporter can take in, okay?
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	Mr. Fruget, what did you do to prepare for your deposition today?
	I spoke with Mr. Woolman and went over my last deposition that I did in 2019.
	I also, you know, looked over the, I don't know if it's a subpoena or whatever it was called, the motion to get me here.
	And I believe there was an affidavit that I had signed that I believe we discussed in the last deposition.
	And so the materials that you reviewed in advance of your deposition included the transcript of the deposition you gave along with an affidavit that was an exhibit to that transcript, correct?
	That is correct.
	You also reviewed, I believe you described it as a motion.
	Was that a pleading in which we set out the basis for why we wanted to depose you?
	It was the yeah, it was the three-page letter that said where to meet, what time.
	So I think what you're describing, and I'll show you that, is the notice of deposition.
	There you go.
	Which I'll let you know, Mr. Fouger, that my staff provided to counsel prior to the deposition a set of exhibits that I may show you today.
	Not included in that set was your notice of deposition, but it was just emailed.
	Yes, we just received that, Chris.
	Thank you.
	And I apologize for the omission.
	What I'll be doing throughout the day, Mr. Fouget, is showing you documents on your screen here, screen function.
	Please, if at any point it's not coming through or there's a portion of it that's cut off, just let me know.
	But that's how I'll be displaying documents to you today, okay?
	Okay.
	Alright.
	So, what i'm going to do now is show you what i'm going to try to do now is show you what's been marked as exhibit number 43.
	Do you see a document before you, sir, on your screen now dated January 13th, 2022 described as defendants' responses to requests for production of documents attached to the renotice of videotape deposition to Timothy Fruget?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And I'll represent to you that Attorney Wallman filed this on behalf of his client yesterday afternoon.
	Scrolling down in this document attached to it or so I thought.
	Okay.
	What are you looking for?
	I'm looking for the notice, which I did.
	That was a separate document that you guys just did.
	Thank you.
	Richard's that.
	Let me just help you out here.
	I think it's 42.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	So, Mr. Fouger, now showing you exhibit number 42.
	This is the renotice of videotape deposition.
	Is this the three-page document you were referring to earlier that you reviewed?
	Yes, sir.
	Okay.
	And in that notice, we asked you to produce certain communications occurring between May 1st, 2018 to January 14th, 2022, correct?
	Correct.
	And are you aware whether the defendants have produced any documents in response to this on your behalf?
	I am aware of a text message from Norm Pattis.
	And I'm showing you now exhibit number 44.
	If you have that before you, that text message you were just referring to?
	Yes.
	This is a text message to Mr. Pattis from you, correct?
	In which, well, let me just ask you, what is this text message?
	This is a text message from Norm Pattis to me.
	On July 10th, 2019?
	Yes, sir.
	Okay.
	And do you know why Mr. Pattis sent you that text message?
	I, to the best of my recollection, it was to show Alex.
	And I'm going to designate this portion of the transcript confidential.
	I know that the text message was produced because the evidence recruited as independent counsel said that the press release had already been released, so I can't unring the bell there.
	But yeah, designating this as confidential.
	Council, this Particular inquiry about the text message, is that what you're designating?
	Yes, okay.
	And did you, in fact, show Mr. Jones the text that Mr. Pattis sent you?
	I believe so.
	Okay, how did Mr. Pattis know to communicate with you in order to convey this information to Mr. Jones?
	I objection that, and I'm going to direct Mr. Fruget not to answer that under attorney client privilege.
	Did you convey anything to Alex Jones other than what is contained in this text message?
	No, sir.
	Okay.
	How did you share it with him?
	I would have found him in the building and showed it to him.
	Back to exhibit number 42 and looking at the request for documents that we conveyed to you.
	That is the text message I just showed you is the only communication that was produced to us in response to this notice of deposition.
	What did you do to locate any documents that were responsive to this request?
	I searched all my email text messages for what was listed, and that was I didn't find anything except for that.
	And the cell phone, is the device that you searched your cell phone?
	Yes.
	Did you use your cell phone to search your emails as well?
	I use the computer to search my emails.
	Is that a personal laptop that you own?
	Personal laptop I own, yes, sir.
	and which email accounts did you search?
	Did not search any InfoWars email address associated with you?
	I do not have access to any InfoWars email addresses.
	Are you currently employed by Infowars?
	Yes, sir.
	And when I say InfoWars, I mean free speech systems.
	Free speech systems.
	But your testimony is that you don't have access to an email in connection with your employment?
	I do not have an InfoWars email.
	That is correct.
	What email address do you use to communicate about work matters?
	I'm sorry, what was the last part?
	What email address do you use to communicate about work matters?
	Since I have been back, I have not used any email.
	I have not really been communicating with too many employees.
	When did you return to Free Speech Systems most recently for employment?
	It was the beginning of November of last year.
	Since that time, the beginning of November 2021, have you used email to communicate at all with other free speech systems employees?
	No, sir.
	How do you communicate?
	I find them in the building and speak with them directly.
	That's been a conscious.
	Well, let me ask you this.
	Why have you not set up an email address?
	I am not the one in charge of setting up an email address.
	I have asked, and that has not been provided to me yet.
	Has anybody provided you with a rationale for why you have not been provided with an email address?
	No, sir.
	Do you have a view as to why you have not been provided with the email address?
	No, sir.
	It's been, you know, started November.
	Holidays, COVID.
	There's been a lot of stuff going on.
	I'm sorry, Mr. Chris?
	Yes, ma'am.
	Can you slow down a little?
	Because with the remote, it kind of slurred you together.
	I'm sorry, yes, I'll try.
	And if I don't, just yell at me again, and I'll keep tracking.
	Not that you yelled.
	Mr. Fouget, are you aware of any other free speech systems employees that do not have an email address?
	I am not aware.
	Well, possib I can just guess.
	Okay.
	And the only person you would guess who doesn't have an email address is Alex, right?
	No, sir.
	Who else?
	Warehouse employees.
	Communicate by text?
	Not as sometimes, yes.
	But your main form of communication at Free Speech Systems since you've returned has basically been talking to people in person?
	Yes, sir.
	Okay.
	And have you had any conversations with anybody about the fact that that method of communication is necessary in order to avoid creating a record that might be requested in any sort of litigation?
	No, that has not been discussed at all.
	Returning in November of 2021, when did you leave employment at Free Speech Systems?
	was I believe the end of September 2020.
	And between September 2020 and November 2021, were you in touch with any of your former coworkers?
	In May of 2020, I came down to Austin to visit family, and I went up to the InfoWare's office and spoke with a few employees as well as Alex.
	You said May of 2020, but did you mean May of 2021?
	Yes, that is correct.
	Okay.
	Other than that in-person visit to the Free Speech Systems offices, is it your testimony that you had no communications with any free speech systems employees between September of 2020 when you left in November 2021?
	Not that I recall.
	I did not leave on good terms.
	Thank you.
	And we'll get to that, Mr. Fouget.
	The cell phone that you searched for text messages, is that your current cell phone?
	I have gotten a new cell phone since.
	And abandoned the former cell phone?
	No, I'm pretty sure I still have that somewhere.
	Okay.
	So which cell phone did you search for responsive text messages?
	It was an iPhone 11.
	The one that you've recently been issued by Free Speech Systems or the one that you had during the time between your two periods of employment there?
	No, it was my personal cell phone.
	Do you still have, but you are not using?
	That's correct.
	It was glitchy, so I switched to...
	And is that the cell phone that you're now using for work purposes?
	It's my personal cell phone, but yes, I will use it.
	I use it for everything.
	Does Free Speech Systems pay for it?
	No.
	And what's the number?
	The cell phone number?
	Yes, sir.
	Thank you.
	Mr. Fruget, do you have any social media accounts that are active?
	Oh, I have a Facebook account.
	Your account name?
	Tim Fruget?
	I'm not sure.
	I set it up a long time ago.
	I don't really post on it.
	Others?
	No, Twitter.
	Instagram?
	No, Instagram.
	And any others of any kind?
	No, I'm not really a Social media guy.
	Okay, thank you, sir.
	And I'll take this document down.
	Sometimes I forget to do that.
	Sorry.
	All right.
	Where do you currently reside, sir?
	I am currently in Austin, Texas.
	They reside at that location with you.
	That is by myself.
	Married?
	Are you married, sir?
	Yes.
	And where does your wife reside?
	My wife resides at her home in Utah.
	Children.
	I'm sorry.
	Do you have any children?
	No, sir.
	Without going into too much detail, can you just explain why your wife has not relocated to Texas with you?
	We are in the process of finding a home in Austin, and once we find the home in Austin, we will then sell the home in Utah to move back here.
	Thank you.
	And you expect to continue to be employed by Free Speech Systems going forward, correct?
	In other words, you're not in any sort of temporary employment situation with Free Speech Systems, right?
	Not to my knowledge.
	How old are you, sir?
	I am 42.
	How far did you go in school?
	I graduated high school.
	Grew up?
	I'm sorry.
	Where did you grow up?
	I claim Austin.
	I was born in Orange, Texas, moved here to Austin when I was 15, and have been here since, besides the last year where I was in Utah.
	Were hired by Free Speech Systems in 2007?
	Is that right?
	That is correct.
	What were you doing for work before that?
	Before that, I was working for dry cleaners in town.
	Well, I'm sorry.
	Doing what?
	Home delivery of dry cleaning, pickup and delivery of dry cleaning.
	Full-time?
	Full-time, yes, sir.
	How long have you been doing that before you were hired at Free Speech Systems?
	to the best that i can remember four or five years Basically, since your early 20s?
	Yes, sir.
	For what position were you hired in 2007 at Free Speech Systems?
	I was hired as a shipping associate slash customer service.
	Thank you.
	Working at the warehouse?
	At that time, it was like a 2,200 square foot building, so everything was done, everything was on top of each other at that time.
	That time in 2007, Mr. Jones was not yet in the supplements business, correct?
	Not that I remember.
	No, it was just VHS tapes, t-shirts, books.
	No, it was just VHS tapes, t-shirts, books.
	HS tapes, t-shirts, and books were really the extent of the products that Free Speech Systems was offering for sale at that time?
	That I remember, yes, sir.
	There was a magazine as well, right?
	There was a magazine, yes.
	And that was a subscription service?
	Yes, as well as a free service.
	there was a number that were distributed throughout Austin free to pick up off the stand.
	Relatively soon after your hire, you were promoted to operations manager, is that right?
	Relatively, I'm not sure.
	The reason I'm asking that is because in the affidavit that I think you reviewed for today, you indicated that in that affidavit was dated December 14th, 2018, you indicated that you had been employed in the capacity as an operations manager for approximately a decade, which would take us back to 2008.
	So that's why I was asking that question.
	Can I review the document again?
	Just yep.
	Yep.
	Give me one second, sir.
	Thank you.
	Now, this, I believe, is...
	No, no, I'm not yet.
	I'm just trying to figure out where we are, because this was not something that we produced as part of the exhibit.
	So I believe this will be exhibit 44.
	Okay.
	And sharing my screen with you now.
	Do you see an affidavit before you that you submitted in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia?
	Yes, I see that.
	It's a case in which Mr. Gilmore is suing Mr. Jones and others, correct?
	That appears so, yes.
	And if you go to paragraph two, you test, I am operations manager of defendant free speech systems and have been employed in a similar capacity for approximately a decade.
	And that was dated May 14th, 2018.
	And so I'm just trying to get a handle from that as to how long or when I should say you became operations manager.
	It appears based on your affidavit that it would have been sometime in approximately 2008.
	Is that true or untrue?
	Approximately I would say it was between 2008 and 2010.
	You're asking me to remember stuff from a very long time ago.
	Fair enough.
	So, and the precise date doesn't matter to me.
	I'm just trying to get a handle on when you went from being shipping associate to being operations manager.
	And it sounds like it was within two to three years of being hired.
	Is that fair?
	That is fair.
	When we moved to the new location, it was a much bigger facility.
	So a lot of stuff needed to get done, construction-wise, operational-wise, as far as, you know, HVACs.
	We had more employees ordering off of supplies, that sort of thing.
	So it was about the time that we moved to that new space, which to the best of my recollection was 2009, 2010, somewhere in that area.
	What's the address of the new space you're describing?
	That would be the 3019 Alvin Devane Boulevard, Suite 350.
	It's also where Mr. Jones' studios are located, is that right?
	That is correct.
	And at least at that time, when you initially moved in the 2009-2010 timeframe, I think you were saying, the shipping workhouse was also located at that location.
	That is correct.
	Is there additional shipping warehouse space that Free Speech Systems has now in addition to the Alvin Devane location?
	Yes.
	And where is that?
	I could not tell you the exact address.
	It's about a mile from Alvin Devane.
	And you indicated that you became operations manager at that time because there was a build out of a larger space happening and additional employees who were being hired.
	Is that fair?
	That is fair.
	Now, at that time, did you have any, I'm talking about 2009 and 2010, did you have any responsibility for overseeing the business of free speech systems beyond just the facility itself?
	From what I remember, a very limited scope.
	We were using a store platform and had someone off-site that was managing that.
	And my extent at that point would be to Alex would tell me something, I would communicate with that person to get the stuff done.
	When you say a store platform, you're talking about online infrastructure to support internet sales, correct?
	That is correct.
	That was being provided externally at that time.
	Yes.
	Externally, I'm confused with that.
	I'm sorry.
	Well, there came a time at Free Speech Systems where Free Speech Systems was using software provided by a third-party vendor but was managing its own internet business autonomously, correct?
	Not my recollection.
	Okay, we'll get into that a little bit.
	Okay.
	But at least as of 2009, 2010, your responsibilities, it sounds like from what you're describing, were to oversee the physical plant for free speech systems.
	Is that right?
	That is correct.
	Okay.
	And were you supervising other employees at that time?
	I can't remember.
	That was so long ago.
	At some point, you took on a larger role in the company as the director of business operations, right?
	Correct.
	And when was that?
	I always did a little bit of everything.
	I would say I sort of just took over certain things, I believe when Buckley Hammond left.
	When was that, sir?
	I don't recall.
	Somewhere in 2017, 2018, somewhere in that range.
	You see...
	So are you aware that Free Speech Systems has produced documents to us in connection with this litigation?
	Yes.
	Emails?
	And it appears from my review of the emails that at least as early as 2012, 2013, you were in a position of significant responsibility in managing the e-commerce business for free speech systems.
	Is that fair?
	Objection?
	In 2012 to 2013, yes, I was doing e-commerce.
	And what I mean by that is you were, other than Alex Jones, at that time, you were the person most involved in the day-to-day operation of free speech systems business, correct?
	Objection?
	Business is a very large term.
	No, I was in charge of managing the online store.
	And the online store is where the overwhelming majority of revenue to free speech systems was generated, correct?
	I would not know that.
	In 2012 or 2013, there was Alex was doing his own thing.
	I have no idea, and that was a very long time ago.
	Your testimony is that as of 2012 and 2013, you're not sure whether or not the online store generated the majority of revenue to free speech systems.
	If I were to guess, I would say yes, but I am not sure of that.
	And you were in charge of that store?
	Yes.
	Along with Mr. Jones?
	Correct.
	Alex was the one calling the shots.
	I was the one implementing what he wanted done.
	With respect to Free Speech Systems e-commerce business through the online store, Mr. Jones supervised some called shots regarding that operation, correct?
	Yes.
	Am I correct?
	That prior to joining Free Speech Systems, you had no experience in online commerce, correct?
	That was correct.
	Excuse me, Mr. Fruget.
	Do you recall what you were making as a dry cleaning delivery person in Austin?
	I was making I believe it was $500 a week plus commissions.
	Do you have a sales role in that job as well?
	Signing up new customers for the service.
	When you were hired by Free Speech Systems in 2007, were you a salaried employee at that time?
	No, sir.
	I was hourly.
	What was your hourly rate?
	I remember getting hired on at $12 an hour.
	When did you convert to a salary employee?
	I couldn't tell you the exact time.
	Somewhere in the early 2010s.
	It corresponded with the move to the Alvin Devaney location?
	It was a little after the move, yes.
	And I think you described the first location as being about 2,200 square feet.
	Is that right?
	That's correct.
	What was the square footage of the plant at Alvin Devane?
	When we moved Sweet 350, from what I remember, it was approximately 7,000, 8,000 square feet.
	That through the warehouse space?
	Including the warehouse space, yes.
	You were aware that that move was necessary due to Mr. Jones increasing online business, correct?
	Yes, that makes sense.
	I mean, I'm not sure, but that makes sense.
	And you were aware of the increasing volume of sales leading up to the move to Alvin Devane, right?
	No.
	I was never involved in the sales at that point.
	That would have happened kind of in the 2011-2012 timeframe.
	Somewhere in that time frame, yes.
	As we grew, there was just need for people to step up.
	And I was there and I was willing to learn and step up and help where I was needed.
	Thank you.
	Where you were needed around that time was to oversee the online store at Mr. Jones' direction, right?
	Correct.
	As well as, you know, ordering office supplies and handling your AC guys, your plumbing guys, your construction guys.
	That was sort of what I was doing at that time.
	What was your salary when you first Came on as a salary employee.
	The best I can remember, it was either $45,000 or $50,000 annually.
	Was it when you resigned in September 2020 or when you separated from Free Speech Systems in September 2020?
	It was $200,000 a year.
	Is it right now?
	200,000 a year.
	The circumstances of you leaving Free Speech Systems in September 2020?
	I was stressed to the max.
	I have some health conditions and the stress was getting to me and everything kind of came to a head when me and Alex got into an argument and I grabbed my bag, told him to go off and walked out and that was the end of it.
	Was the catalyst for the argument?
	Him being Alex Jones.
	He was just complaining about everything.
	I was trying to help.
	He was complaining about something else.
	I don't remember too much of the details, but it was Alex being Alex as far as just I can't say the word because I don't want to swear, he was just being a jerk.
	sad music
	Is he being a jerk about?
	Just the business in general.
	We were, I was dealing with, there is some group out there that was constantly DDoSing our store, basically attacking our store.
	So I was on the phone with the firm that handled our servers for our online store dealing with that.
	And he came in and he was complaining about something else.
	I don't even remember exactly what it was.
	And I was trying to explain to him, look, I'm trying to keep your store online so you can make money.
	And he just proceeded to start yelling at me and I had enough.
	You quit?
	I quit.
	Indicated that you were under a lot of stress and that stress had to do with your responsibilities or the way in which Mr. Jones was supervising you or some combination or other factor.
	The way all the issues, at that place, there are forest fires every day.
	And at that moment, the reason I walked out, it was the way Alex Jones was treating me.
	Mr. Jones, have any complaints about your performance?
	Not to my knowledge.
	Have any complaints about the business's profitability?
	Not to my knowledge.
	In fact, since you started assuming responsibilities for e-commerce activities in 2011, 2012, Mr. Jones's business had grown every year, correct?
	From my recollection, that is correct.
	Its profits had grown every year, is that correct?
	I believe so, yes.
	Employees were you supervising at the time you left?
	I was I couldn't give you a number count.
	I was supervising e-commerce, warehouse, customer service, facilities.
	How about when you talk about supervising e-commerce?
	You're referring to InfoWarStore.com and InfoWarshop.com, right?
	Correct.
	Were there any other revenue generating websites that you handled?
	I wouldn't say I handled, but managed people that were handling was, I can remember Amazon, we had products on Amazon.
	I believe we had products on eBay, InfoStore.com, InfoWarshop.com.
	And that's all I can remember right now.
	Free Speech Systems was selling its products on third-party websites, eBay and Amazon, right?
	That is correct.
	But the two online platforms that were owned by Free Speech Systems that it was using to sell its products were InfoWarStore.com and InfoWarshop.com, right?
	That is correct.
	And you were responsible for managing the infrastructure supporting each of those websites.
	Yes.
	And for tracking sales activity, correct?
	Yes.
	When you left in September of 2020, you moved to Utah, is that right?
	That is correct.
	And did you find work in Utah?
	Yes.
	Where were you working?
	Ready Alliance Group.
	What's that?
	It is actually the storable food company that supplied Alex with the storable food that he sold.
	One of Alex's suppliers.
	Yes.
	And you had a relationship with them as a result of your work at Free Speech Systems.
	Correct.
	As you did with all of Mr. Jones' suppliers, right?
	Well, the ones that I dealt with personally, yes.
	And that's where you stayed until you left in November of last year?
	That is correct, yes.
	And when I say state, I mean that's where you're in.
	Austin.
	Yeah, that's where I worked in Utah until we made the decision to move back to Austin.
	That came about.
	That is, how did it come about that you were thinking about coming back to Austin?
	When me and my wife visited in May, it was the first time we've seen our family, you know, since we had left.
	And, you know, both of our parents are here in town.
	My sister's here in town.
	And we realized how much we miss them.
	And we don't have much time with their parents left.
	And, you know, it started, the conversation started at that point because when I came back in May and went up to the offices and spoke with Alex, he immediately offered me a job.
	So when I got back and spoke with my wife, I was like, look, if we want to move back, he offered me a job.
	So that was, we molded over and it was around September, October.
	It's like, okay, let's just do this.
	But you are, and the job that Mr. Jones hired you or offered you in May 2021 was what?
	He wasn't specific.
	Typical Alex.
	He just said, come back.
	You know, I'll hire you.
	He asked me what I was doing at the other job.
	I told him I was trying to save him money, looking at expenses, you know, determining whether, you know, is this service necessary for this?
	And I told him I could help, I could do that for him.
	I could do whatever he needed.
	Sort of what, you know, my role was before I left was I would always tell him I'll do what, you know, if I don't know, I'll figure it out or I'll find some way to get it done.
	but it wasn't like a specific, this is what I'm hiring you back for.
	Who eventually came back in November of this past year?
	Was your role more defined?
	No, no, it was not because when I left, Blake stepped in and he's doing a great job of doing a lot of the stuff that I was doing before.
	And is he now essentially serving as the director of business operations?
	I am not sure if that's his title.
	That place is not big on titles, but yes, he is doing a lot of the stuff I was doing as business operations.
	He used to work for you, right?
	Correct.
	I actually hired him.
	Did you sign a non-disclosure agreement when you came back?
	Yes.
	Had you been working under a non-disclosure agreement before you left?
	Yes.
	Was that a condition of your employment?
	As far as.
	Did you have to sign it?
	I mean, I wasn't told I had to sign it, but I signed it.
	I should have signed it.
	Just kind of standard, I guess.
	Who asked you to sign it?
	That was accounting, Melinda.
	No, no, it was Nikki and Accounting that did the paperwork.
	Linda is in charge of the accounting department?
	Melinda is in charge of the accounting department.
	That's Melinda Flores.
	correct And I take it that Free Speech Systems is the only entity you've ever been employed by that's associated with our students, correct?
	that is correct.
	All right.
	How are you doing?
	Okay?
	Yeah.
	If at any point you need a break, just let me know, okay?
	um When I asked you earlier about the business, you said, you know, the business is a, I forget your exact words, but you said something like it's a big thing.
	Because I was asking you about your role, and then you specified that, and I'm going to focus my questions now, Mr. Fouget, on the period of your employment up until September 2020.
	So that first, I guess, 13 years you were employed by Free Speech Systems, okay?
	Okay.
	So unless I say otherwise, all of my questions are directed towards your experience during that time.
	Okay.
	Gotcha.
	When you were hired in 2007, approximately how many employees were there?
	I believe I was number seven.
	Employees are there now?
	I couldn't tell you how many there are now.
	I have no idea.
	100?
	So we're talking about before I left.
	Okay, 2020.
	No, not 100.
	Probably 60, 70.
	I am not sure about that at all.
	There's the whole production side, which I don't have no idea how many people are over there.
	And you were employee number seven, right?
	I believe so, yes.
	You were hired directly by Alex Jones?
	correct.
	And when we were talking about the business earlier, I think you were trying to make the point that the business that you had responsibility for had to do with the e-commerce side of things.
	Is that right?
	That is correct.
	And you were distinguishing between the e-commerce side of things and, I take it, the production side of things.
	Fair to say?
	Well, in what regards are we talking about the whole company?
	Or when you're saying business, I think revenue.
	That's what I think too.
	I'm sorry.
	That's what I think too.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So, no, to clarify, the e-commerce side is one thing.
	I believe at that time we had some ad salesmen that would, you know, if a sponsor wanted on the show or something.
	And I had no idea what was going on there.
	So my focus was on just the online store.
	Okay.
	I'm glad you mentioned that.
	So let's talk about the revenue streams into free speech systems, okay?
	Okay.
	And is it fair to say that those revenue streams have changed over time?
	That is fair.
	We were talking earlier about when you started and you were describing as sources of revenue in 2007 as online sales of books, DVDs, and merchandise, right?
	Yes.
	And then there was also a magazine subscription back in 2007, right?
	No, not in 2007.
	Okay, so in 2007, other than those three sources of revenue, Mr. Jones was also selling advertising space on his programs, correct?
	Yes.
	Did you have any involvement in that?
	No.
	You later did have involvement in selling advertising on both his show and on the website, correct?
	That is correct.
	But at that time, you did not.
	That's correct.
	What other sources of revenue were you aware of in 2007?
	The ads and the store.
	Jones also took donations, right?
	yes And over time, Mr. Jones's business at Free Speech Systems has come to include the online sale of dietary supplements, correct?
	Correct.
	Personal hygiene products, correct?
	Correct.
	In addition to the merchandise he sells, right?
	Correct.
	Over time, he had an online subscription, video subscription service, right?
	That is right.
	And what website was that associated with?
	That was PrisonPlanet.tv.
	And he also had a revenue stream coming in through a program referred to as Youngevity, correct?
	Correct.
	And did you have any involvement in that particular aspect of the business?
	No, I was not involved in Yongevity.
	And Mr. Jones continued to sell advertising, correct?
	So what I believe, yes, at that time he was still selling advertising.
	And we're talking about that time.
	I'm basically talking about the period between 2007 and 2020, right?
	So there were times where, no, there were no sponsors of anything.
	At certain time periods, I couldn't tell you which ones throughout that timeframe, there was no sponsors or advertisers.
	And that's in part because Mr. Jones would advertise his own products rather than third-party products on his programming, correct?
	Correct.
	And in addition to advertising products, he would also charge individuals who wanted to appear on his show and wanted to highlight their own products, correct?
	current.
	But in thinking about the trajectory of the business from 2007 to 2020, it's fair to say that the dietary supplements and personal care products that Mr. Jones sells have become the overwhelming majority of his revenue, correct?
	current Cole, when Free Speech Systems first started selling supplements online?
	I couldn't give you an exact date.
	No, I have no idea.
	I can't.
	I don't remember that.
	You discuss with Mr. Jones transitioning the business into dietary supplements?
	I was not the one, and I didn't discuss with him.
	That was just Alex saying, hey, we're going to start selling this.
	We're going to come out with our own product here.
	So, but I wasn't, I didn't partake in any discussions of you need to sell dietary supplements.
	That decision was made by Mr. Jones and he conveyed it to you, correct?
	Correct.
	And Mr. Jones selected the products that he intended to sell online, correct?
	Correct.
	And were you, was it your understanding that Mr. Jones was personally involved in negotiating the purchase of those products from third-party suppliers?
	I guess so.
	I'm not sure.
	I know I was not involved in that.
	Something that Anthony Gucciarti was involved in?
	Possibly, yes.
	Not aware of Free Speech Systems ever investing any money in research and development of the supplements that it sold, correct?
	I'm not aware of any of that.
	It's been your understanding as the director of business operations that Mr. Jones and Free Speech Systems purchases dietary supplements from third-party suppliers and then brands them as an Alex Jones product, correct?
	That's my understanding.
	With substantial markup over what the purchase price was, correct?
	Yeah, just like anything else.
	I mean, you know, you buy a t-shirt for five bucks, you sell it for 20.
	T-shirts sometimes have more margins than supplements.
	Show you a fruit.
	Familiar with the Emerich's Essentials line of products that Free Speech Systems sells?
	Yes.
	Is that a high-performing product for Free Speech Systems?
	No, it never really caught on that big.
	Okay.
	When it was initially launched, was it successful?
	Somewhat not as successful as we were hoping it would be.
	What is Emery's Essentials?
	I'm sorry, what was that?
	What is Emerich's Essentials?
	It was okay, let me think about this.
	Trying to remember.
	It was basically a separate line, and it was not supplements, but it was more like home care, health care, like personal hygiene Stuff.
	Body wash, right?
	Yes, yes.
	Lotion.
	Yes.
	Deodorant.
	Correct.
	And this line of products was referred to as Emerich's Essentials because Emmerich is Alex's middle name, right?
	That's correct.
	I have an exhibit that I want to show you about Emerich's Essentials, but I'm having trouble finding it right now, so we will come back to it.
	But the point that I think you were making was that, like in any business, Mr. Jones is trying to turn a profit on the products that he sells, correct?
	Correct.
	And the percentage that he marks them up over his cost is determined by Mr. Jones, right?
	That's correct.
	All right.
	Now, from listening to your testimony, it sounds like your role kind of expanded as the online business expanded.
	Is that fair to say?
	That's fair to say.
	I mean, the whole thing expanded as online sales expanded.
	So, yeah, there was always something to do.
	So there was always more to do.
	As Mr. Jones's online store expanded, more and more of your time was spent essentially managing the principal revenue generating aspect of Mr. Jones' business, which is the online store, right?
	Correct.
	But Mr. Jones was also involved in that operation on a daily basis, correct?
	Correct.
	And you were in touch with him on a daily basis about the store's performance, correct?
	Correct.
	In fact, he would call you pretty much every day after his program to discuss the store's performance during the show, right?
	Yes.
	Because Mr. Jones, during every show, would pitch his products and encourage his audience to buy them, correct?
	Yes.
	And so he would check with you on the effectiveness of his pitch to his audience, effectiveness measured by the amount of sales that were transacted during the show, right?
	That's correct.
	And those conversations, am I correct, would then inform which products he would sell the next day and going forward, correct?
	Yes.
	Did you say yes?
	Yes.
	And those conversations would inform his decisions about sales to run, right?
	I'm sorry, can you repeat that?
	Those discussions would inform his decision about whether to run sales on certain products, right?
	He always made the decision.
	And the decision that I'm talking about here is the decision to, or the decision whether to offer a sale on a particular product, right?
	Correct.
	So you know that Mr. Jones will often pitch a product by informing his audience that you're offering it for 50% off for a particular period of time, right?
	I'm sorry, can you repeat it?
	Yeah, I'm just giving you an example.
	You are aware that among Mr. Jones' strategies is to tell his audience that he's offering a particular product at a discount for a specific period of time, right?
	Yes.
	And the decision as to which products to discount and the extent of any discount would be made by Mr. Jones, right?
	Yes.
	Informed by the sales activity that you would discuss with him each day, right?
	Direction?
	Yes and no.
	So sometimes he would try it.
	He loves pushing t-shirts, even though t-shirts do not sell all the time.
	So it is not solely based on the sales.
	If he gets a wild hair and he wants to push something else, he'll do it.
	That's the way he is.
	Or he chooses to use the information.
	He would access it every day through you by discussing the sales performance during the show, right?
	Yes.
	And you had sales information available to you down to the minute, right?
	So what I mean by that is you could tell by looking at the sales data what sales volume was at any particular time given the day in the day, right?
	Only if I logged in at that time.
	Fair enough.
	You had to be logged in.
	And if you were logged in and Mr. Jones was on the air at 3 p.m. pitching bone broth, you could see in real time how many people were buying bone broth, right?
	Almost real time, yes.
	And if Mr. Jones had a guest on for, let's say, the first hour of his show, you could see in real time how much sales activity was happening during that hour, right?
	Yes.
	And even if you weren't looking at it in real time, you would have those totals for Mr. Jones after the show.
	If he requested them, yes.
	And that's a conversation you would have with him on a near-daily basis, fair to say?
	Almost, yeah.
	If he was interested, I would give him the information.
	I never voluntarily gave him the information, but if he asked, I would give it to him.
	And he would ask almost every day?
	Yes.
	But Mr. Jones had a particularly good day selling products, he would know which topics he discussed during that particular show, right?
	Objection?
	I don't know what he's thinking, but you know, it's, yeah, if a certain product is selling well that day, then I, you know, he would do with that information what he did.
	Have you reviewed David Jones's testimony in this case?
	I have not.
	I'll represent to you that Mr. Jones testified, David Jones, testified in substance that if there was a day or time when there was a spike in activity, that folks would try to determine what might have caused that and then replicate it.
	Are you familiar with that concept?
	No, I don't recall.
	I never blue read or watched David Jones' thing, but that makes sense in business if something is working to keep doing it.
	And that's something that Mr. Jones endeavored to do when it came to maximizing his own profitability, correct?
	Objection?
	I don't know what he's thinking, but like I said, I would provide him the information.
	What he does on a show is his thing.
	I never talked to him about what he does on the show or anything, but if he requested the information, I would give it to him and he did what he does.
	But you yourself were personally, well, strike that.
	You were responsible, just as Mr. Jones was, perhaps less so, but responsible for maximizing the store's performance, right?
	I mean, to what I could do on my side, yes.
	And one of the things that you could do was when there was a spike in revenue on a particular day, was trying to assess what may have caused it so that you could replicate it, right?
	Objection?
	No, I never.
	If there was a spike in sales during his show, I would tell him, whatever you did worked because the sales increased, but I never looked at his show.
	I mean, I can't listen to his show.
	It's too much for me.
	It's very distracting while I was working.
	I never, I have no idea what he was doing on a show.
	But you would say to him, look, whatever you did, it worked, right?
	That is correct.
	And in addition to having data about revenue in your real time and reporting that to him, you also had data available to you about traffic on the InfoWars.com website, right?
	I had access to that Google Analytics account at a certain point, yes.
	Not just talking about Google Analytics.
	I mean, there was other analytics providers that you referenced, right?
	Yeah, but to see real time on Infowars.com, the only thing I can recall viewing those numbers would be on Google Analytics.
	Did you ever refer to an analytics platform, if that's the right word, called Alexa?
	Alexa, yes, that was a long time ago.
	And Quantcast as well, right?
	And Quantcast, yes, sir.
	And each of those platforms provided data about website traffic on Infowars.com, right?
	Yes.
	And the audience traffic to Infowars.com was relevant to you because there was a direct relationship between traffic to that website and revenue generated from the online store, correct?
	To a certain extent, yes.
	The more people visiting Infowars.com, the more people buying stuff at the store, right?
	Yeah, I mean, you know, it's, yeah, more people in Town Square, the more people go to the shops.
	Yes, that's correct.
	And you were aware that that was one of Mr. Jones' objectives in generating audience traffic to his site was to convert those audience members into paying customers, correct?
	Director?
	I don't know what he's thinking.
	I would tell him if there's, you know, it's, like I just said, the more people that are in town square, the more people that are going into the shops.
	So just by default, the more people going to the news website, I mean, you're going to pick up traffic coming over to the store because we had banner ads running.
	Right.
	And not only that, but during the show, he's telling his audience to go to the store, right?
	Yes.
	Right.
	And now, how to get those audience members to Infowars.com, that was Mr. Jones's purview, right?
	Yes.
	He would decide what he wanted to talk about in order to generate audience, correct?
	Correct.
	But as you testified, he was aware and you would inform him that the more people that come there to the show, the more people that are coming to the store, right?
	Yes.
	And showing you exhibit number 27, I have an email before you, Mr. Fruger, from Chris Ellison to you dated March 11th, 2016.
	Yes.
	Okay, good.
	And who's Chris Ellison?
	Chris Ellison was the e-commerce manager for a certain period of time.
	Worked under you?
	Yes, he reported to me.
	And in this email, and by the way, your email address is Tim at Infowars.com, or at least it was.
	It was, yes.
	And Chris is still employed there?
	No, Chris was gone.
	Chris is gone for quite a while now.
	But he is sending you an email with the subject line, largest traffic spike ever, correct?
	Yes.
	And he says, hey, Tim, yesterday we saw the largest traffic spike ever.
	And he's sending this on March 11th, 2016.
	So fair to say he's referring to March 10th, 2016, right?
	Yes.
	Things into perspective, we hit 26,858 sessions on the 29th of February.
	By far a big number.
	Yesterday we capped out at 118,712.
	Our conversion rate was less than 1%.
	What's a conversion rate?
	A conversion rate, from my understanding, is a percentage of the number of people that come to the store versus the number of people that actually purchase.
	Your understanding is he's sending you this, that he's referring to sessions and conversion rate on the InfoWars store website, not Infowars.com, right?
	Yeah, there would be no conversion rates on InfoWars.com.
	It would be InfoWarsStore.com.
	Do you know whether Free Speech Systems was capable of measuring the conversion rate of visitors to Infowars.com who then came to the Infowars store and purchased?
	Not to my knowledge.
	No.
	But at least with respect to the Infowars store, on this occasion, Mr. Ellison is saying that the conversion rate was less than 1%, which is down from 12%, which is the site average, right?
	Okay.
	Is that right?
	That's what he said?
	That's what he said.
	And do you agree that in 2016, the average conversion rate of visitors to the InfoWars store was 12%?
	I couldn't tell you.
	I was not in it every day.
	I was not the one that would be trying to figure out conversion rates.
	I mean, it seems high to me, but it wouldn't surprise me.
	Second paragraph, it says new users accounted for 81% of total traffic.
	So obviously that's great, right, from a business perspective, having new users.
	Yes.
	And then it says direct and social were the biggest players of bringing in the new traffic.
	What do you understand him to mean by direct and social?
	The direct would be, this is all from my understanding.
	I could be totally wrong, but in my head.
	I mean, you would use these terms as well in your own work, right?
	Talking about direct traffic versus traffic coming from social.
	You know what that means.
	Yeah, but I could be wrong as far as industry goes, but to me, and what I'm reading is direct would be when visitors directly visited the store.
	Meaning that was their, when they typed in a URL address, they went directly to the store.
	They didn't get referred there from another location on the internet, right?
	Correct.
	Social, though, is people who would click on a store link from their social media activity, right?
	That would be my understanding, yes.
	And you know that throughout your tenure as managing the store, that social media was a significant referrer of paying customers to the store.
	Jack Schumann?
	Paying customers to the store?
	I do not know that.
	No.
	Did you ever look at the percentage of visitors that were referred from social media?
	I remember doing that for Infowars.com, but not InfoWarsStore.com.
	But in any event, with respect to this largest spike ever, Mr. Ellison provides you with some comparables.
	And he says, checking the news feeds, I didn't notice anything that could account for that spike.
	I'll keep a close eye on things and keep you posted.
	Do you see that?
	Yes.
	And so this is an example of what we were talking about earlier, where there's a spike in activity and an effort to determine what in the news could have accounted for that, right?
	Objection?
	Yes and no.
	So if there was a big news day, if there was a big story for whatever that CNN, Fox, Trudge, everybody was covering, it would send more traffic to InfoWars.com, which in turn would send more traffic to InfoWars Store.
	So there might be a huge news day that Mr. Jones isn't driving from his own program, but it results in additional traffic to the Infowars.com website and consequently the store.
	Yes, I mean, yes, correct.
	Okay.
	Why is it that if there's significant news day that Mr. Jones experiences the benefit of that?
	A lot of people consider him media.
	I mean, he's a media outlet.
	He has his stories.
	I mean, there's people that when something big is in the news, they check out all the news sources.
	I mean, that's just me guessing.
	That's what I always assumed.
	I'm going to go ahead and see.
	And this is what Mr. Ellison attached.
	You recognize this to be a basically a Google Analytics report showing the spike he was referring to.
	I am not sure where he got it.
	If you want to pull it back up, I can read through it.
	So it looks like this is what he attached.
	If you look at the attachment, screenshot analyticsgoogle.com.
	Chris, you stopped sharing.
	Yeah, I don't see anything.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Sorry about that.
	If you look at the attachment line in the email, oh, you weren't even seeing what I was.
	I'm sorry.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So if you look at the attachment to the email, this is what I was trying to show you earlier.
	Okay.
	Is this a especially a screen grab of a Google Analytics screen showing the spike that Mr. Ellison was referring to?
	It appears so, yes.
	All right.
	Mr. Fruget, we've been going for almost an hour and a half.
	I think why don't we take a breather?
	Okay.
	We could come back in 10 minutes.
	Does that work for you, Madam Court Reporter?
	That works for me.
	Okay, great.
	Thank you very much.
	Going off the record, the time is 10:23 a.m.
	The end of the day is the end of the day.
	We are back on the record.
	Time is 10.37 a.m.
	Mr. Fruget, when we left, I was showing you this exhibit number 27.
	I'm going to bring that back up.
	Do you have the same email in front of you dated March 11, 2016 from Mr. Ellison?
	Yes.
	All right.
	Now, a couple things I want to clarify.
	When Mr. Ellison is describing for you the direct and social channels through which people came to the website on this day,
	is he referring to traffic referred to what I'm trying to figure out is whether these numbers here include referrals from Infowars.com or whether or not these numbers would relate solely to people who typed in the URL address for the store,
	that being direct traffic, or clicked on a store link from a social media feed.
	I couldn't tell you what he is trying to say here.
	If you give me a minute, I will read this.
	I don't remember reading this originally.
	I used to get thousands of emails a day, but let me look through this.
	So direct and social work that is clear, direct contributed social is worthless traffic.
	If you ask me less than 11% from this is he is trying to tell me there was a big spike in total traffic to the store, but it did not convert to sales because he's saying it is worthless traffic if you ask me.
	I'm not sure.
	I'm sorry, if you can repeat the question, I will try and answer it.
	I will, and let me pick up on what you just said just now, because I was going to ask you about that as well.
	You understand Mr. Ellison to be saying that the traffic is worthless because the visitors to the store's website didn't spend money, right?
	Yes.
	Some of them did, but not in the normal percentage of visitors to the store, which he describes as 12%, right?
	Correct.
	Getting back to my other question, what I'm trying to figure out is whether the traffic he is describing to the InfoWars store website,
	whether either through the direct channel he's describing or the social channel, whether any of that traffic was referred from the InfoWars.com website.
	Director?
	I don't know how I would be able to tell you that.
	I don't know what he was thinking.
	He doesn't specify in this email.
	I guess when you were thinking of direct traffic to the Infowars store website, you were thinking of people who landed there without first coming through Infowars.com, right?
	But without coming from anywhere else.
	They go to their address bar up top, type in InfoWarsStore.com, and directly hit the website.
	So in that circumstance, InfoWars.com isn't the front door to the store, correct?
	Correct.
	But in most circumstances, Infowars.com is the front door to the store because the majority of customers come through InfoWars.com, right?
	Objection?
	I don't know if I would say the majority.
	It depends on time, day.
	There's so many facets to that.
	I couldn't tell you definitively the majority of traffic.
	Maybe a one-day yes, one day no.
	but it it all depends i mean That's something you would have discussed with Mr. Jones during your daily call, right?
	Well, if I, yes.
	And typical thing, I would tell him, hey, largest spike ever.
	I don't remember this, but if I'm looking at this and I'm putting myself back in 2016, he's telling me that there was a largest spike ever that didn't contribute to sales.
	And if you scroll down and look at that map, the screenshot he sent, that would tell me that we were being attacked on the store because that happened all the time.
	Where whatever players, whoever players would send bots and all kinds of stuff to try and spike the traffic up on the store to overrun the servers to bring the store down.
	That happened all the time.
	So if I am looking at this today and putting myself in my shoes from 2016, I would say that's the point that is trying to be made is, hey, something weird happened.
	This could be an attack.
	Your view change if you knew that on March 10th, 2016, the Republican presidential debate was held?
	yeah that would change my view i would say we got a ton of traffic because All right, I want to show you a couple of exhibits here, starting with exhibit seven.
	Oh, by the way, did you talk to anybody during the break, Mr. Fruget?
	I talked to Mr. Woolman.
	Okay.
	Anybody else?
	No.
	Was Mr. Rendazza a part of that conversation?
	No.
	I would represent that his call is transferred to me by my assistant.
	So, I mean, technically, he spoke with her.
	Oh, yes.
	Yes.
	Sorry.
	You initiated that call?
	Yes.
	Looking at exhibit number seven.
	shows to you.
	Do you have an email dated June 27, 2016 in front of you?
	Yes.
	All right.
	And am I correct that you would get these emails from InfoWarsLife at gmail.com every week?
	I guess so.
	I mean, I couldn't tell you definitively if it's there, it's there.
	I don't recall getting them, but it's obviously here.
	You don't recall getting week-over-week comparisons every week regarding all-in-one e-commerce?
	No, I do not.
	Okay.
	Well, let me, let's, let's walk through the exhibit.
	Again, this is June 27th, 2016.
	If you scroll down, sorry, skipped a couple pages.
	So if you go down to page one of the exhibit, you see.
	Let me ask you this.
	If I change the view, Mr. Fruger, to two pages, does that make it easier for you to see?
	No, it makes it harder.
	Makes it harder.
	Okay.
	What if I just zoom out a little bit?
	Is that better?
	No, the first way is much better.
	Okay, great.
	Okay.
	Sorry about that.
	So.
	And I'm going to make this portion of the transcript confidential.
	So what's Nagento?
	Nagento is the software that is used to run InfowarsStore.com.
	And also on InfoWarshop.com?
	No.
	InfoWarshop.com was run by 3D cart software.
	And you were involved in 2015 in transitioning over to Magento and then again for Magento 2.0 in 2017, right?
	I oversaw the process, yes.
	And you signed up the contract for Free Speech Systems to license this software, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	At any event, so what we're seeing here, I'm going to correct, are weekly statistics for the week June 20th, 2016 to June 26, 2016, and comparing that performance to the prior week, right?
	It appears so, yes.
	And the data contained in this report, while it's displayed over a Google Analytics report, is actually drawn from the e-commerce software in use at the time, which was Magento, right?
	I don't know.
	It appears to be, yes.
	So I want to scroll down here to a look if we could at the transactions by medium.
	Do you see that header there?
	Yes.
	And because, is it fair to say that because this is a Magento and not 3D cart drawn data, that this data relates to the InfowarStore.com, not InfoWarshop.com?
	That would be correct.
	All right.
	So this transactions by medium section of the report, which depicts two graphs corresponding to each week, what are those graphs conveying here?
	Transactions by medium.
	Magento email.
	I mean, I couldn't tell you definitively.
	It appears to be a breakdown of transactions by medium, like Magento, email, CPC, which would be a cost per click, referral, phone, and other.
	Do you understand the mediums described here to basically be the different ways in which individuals conducted purchases from the InfowarStore.com?
	That would appear to be the case, yes.
	Thank you.
	For example, in the green segment of the graph, which refers to email, you understand that to be somebody who has clicked on an email in order to purchase a product, right?
	Correct.
	For the red section, cost per click, you understand that to be somebody who has clicked on a paid advertisement, been routed to the store, and executed a purchase, right?
	Correct.
	Referral, light blue, do you understand that to be somebody who has been referred to the InfowarsStore.com website from a different website?
	Correct.
	And Magento, blue, am I correct, would be all purchases originating from traffic on the InfoWars.com website or the InfowarsStore.com website?
	No, I would interpret the Magento as being direct traffic because if it was Coming from Infowars.com, it would be in the light blue referral.
	Understand that Infowars.com would be considered a referring site here.
	Correct.
	Okay.
	And then you have orange, which is other.
	Do you know what that is?
	No.
	Other.
	All right.
	The total number of transactions are listed here on the right, correct?
	Week over week?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	E-commerce conversion rate.
	This is again the rate that we were discussing earlier.
	That is the percentage of visitors to the store who actually purchase a product, right?
	Correct.
	And at least for the week of June 13th, Mr. Ellison's average seems to be right, 12%.
	Appears to be so.
	Okay.
	Total revenue for those weeks.
	Somewhere, you know, for June 20th, $933 plus thousand.
	For the week beginning June 13th, $1 million plus, right?
	Yes.
	And going back to 2016, I mean, is it fair to say that the InfowarsStore.com website was averaging approximately a million dollars in sales a week?
	That sounds about right, yes.
	Your average order value here, right?
	So on average, each customer is paying, you know, over this two-week period between $96 and $120 on average for a product or a set of products?
	Per order placed, correct?
	Per order, right?
	So, you know, you might have, you know, Body Lotion and Gorilla Mind in one order, and the average is going to be what you see here.
	It's the average, yeah, whatever.
	It's an average of all the orders, what the dollar amount was spent.
	You know, total revenue divided by number of orders equals average order value.
	Here's what I wanted to ask you about.
	So if you come down here to the page three, okay?
	Okay.
	Now again, we're discussing sources and mediums, right?
	Okay.
	And it says here that infowars.com slash magento as a medium shows that over this two-week period, am I correct, that infowars.com was the most significant source of weekly revenue.
	And I'm going to scroll down.
	And the reason I'm asking you about this is because when you were looking above, you kind of suggested that, you know, the dark blue Magento piece of the circle graph would not have included referrals from InfoWars.com.
	But I'm showing you this because here at the header, Magento seems to include Infowars.com, right?
	I mean, that's whoever made this report, that's what they put on there.
	That's what I'm looking at.
	Yeah, and at least according to this report, InfoWars.com listed as the source is by far, just as we scroll down, the most significant generator of revenue, the Infowars store, of the sources listed, correct?
	So I'm looking here, one, two, three, further down, InfoWars.com/slash referral.
	Sorry, we're infowars.com forward slash banner.
	Yeah.
	I have no idea what the per whoever created this, I have no idea.
	I was not in their mind to find out why certain things are listed the way they are.
	But I just want to kind of confirm here that in your experience and based on your knowledge as the director of business operations, visitors to Infowars.com were by far the largest referring strike that.
	Infowars.com was the largest referring source for InfowarsStore.com, and that's what you understand to be depicted here in this first header.
	No.
	No, I would not indicate that by what's on this first header because I feel that's confusing to me.
	Because we have InfoWars.com Magento, and you're talking about referral, but down here says Infowars.com referral.
	When you say down here, where you so if you scroll down just a little bit right here right there, InfoWars.com referral.
	So if we're if we're basing this off of those pie charts and looking at up top, it would the re that's referral.
	I have no idea what Infowars.com forward slash Magento is because Infowars.com is not run on Magento.
	What was it run on?
	I believe it was WordPress.
	Okay.
	So looking at this does not help you in understanding where traffic was coming from to the store, right?
	That is correct.
	And that was one of the reasons Mr. Ellison was let go.
	Mr. Ellison didn't send you this.
	This was sent directly from to be an automated email, right?
	Gotcha.
	Yeah, I'm not sure who was doing that.
	So, yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	I do want to bring up just another similar weekly report that you would have received.
	This is exhibit number nine.
	About two months later, do you see that, Mr. Fouger?
	August 22nd, 2016?
	Yes, sir.
	All right.
	Again, it appears to you to be the same type of email where you're receiving week over week revenue numbers.
	It appears so, yes.
	And so if we go down to the attachment again, you have that same layout, right?
	And again, you have transactions, you have weekly revenue numbers, right?
	You'd agree with me that two months later, again, the weekly average appears to be hovering right around a million bucks.
	Yes, 2016 was the presidential thing, so yes.
	And the reason you're saying that is because you believe that the existence of the presidential race contributed to an increase in your weekly revenue?
	Well, I mean, everyone was, it's the presidential cycle, I would assume that's what it is.
	I couldn't tell you definitively, but that's what makes sense to me.
	Okay.
	But in fact, in 2017, didn't, which was a non-presidential year, didn't InfoWarsStore.com exceed its weekly average revenue over 2016?
	I don't recall.
	I mean, if you have something, you can show me, but I don't remember.
	Fair enough.
	there's a muscle to ask you about in here okay Oh, I want to go back to free speech systems, the early days.
	We talked a little bit about at the outset about revenue streams.
	let's kind of ballpark it as being you know prior to the move to alvin debate okay okay Who wores is me?
	I'm free speech systems and free speech systems is me.
	So the corporate representative of either of those companies absolutely should prepare for their deposition via extensive conversation with Mr. Jones to fill in all the gaps.
	We can hear that she didn't talk to him in preparation for her deposit.
	I apologize.
	They haven't been responding to something else.
	Or you may want to mute.
	And for the court reporter, please note that Mr. Pattis, Attorney Norm Pattis, has logged on.
	He represents the four LLC defendants I represent.
	Thank you.
	Apologies, Chris.
	It's all right.
	It's impressive.
	Do you need a minute to figure out where you were?
	No, no, no.
	So wait, wait, was Norm accidentally broadcasting?
	He wasn't supposed to.
	He was listening to something, yes.
	So I'm monitoring two proceedings simultaneously.
	I had a call.
	I wanted to make sure I wasn't accidentally broadcasting.
	All right.
	I'm going to try and do this efficiently, Mr. Fouget.
	So just to summarize what I think we've covered, but I want to make sure it's clear.
	As I understand it, prior to Mr. Jones' supplements business becoming such a large part of his revenue operation, he generated revenue from the following ways.
	One was a Infowars magazine that he both distributed for free and also pursuant to subscriptions, paid subscriptions, right?
	No.
	The InfoWars magazine was we were already at Alvin Devane when that happened.
	All right.
	So rather than pegging this to the move to Alvin Devane, let's peg it to prior to Mr. Jones' entry into the supplement business, okay?
	Okay.
	All right.
	The magazine was a source of revenue, right?
	Profit-wise, no.
	Paid for it, but it may not have been profitable.
	It was not profitable at all.
	Yes, that was one of his projects.
	Again, he would push it, but no.
	No.
	Lost a lot of money there.
	Okay, but in some ways that was a lost leader, right?
	Because Mr. Jones acquired a list of subscribers, right?
	No objection.
	I mean, people would buy them, but the majority of the print was put out for free here in Austin.
	There was not that many subscribers from what I remember.
	But let me show you exhibit number eight.
	Okay.
	And this is in 2013.
	Do you see an email from Heath to you?
	And Heath is forwarding an email from Lydia to Heath.
	These emails occurring on May 3rd and May 6th, 2013.
	You see that?
	Yes.
	All right.
	And who's Heath?
	Heath was one of the graphic designers that worked on the magazine.
	Who is Lydia?
	Lydia was the bookkeeper accountant at the time.
	She's somebody that you worked with fairly regularly?
	Lydia?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Sometimes, yes.
	What purposes would you interact with her?
	For anything financial.
	I mean, she was the one that did all the bookkeeping.
	I'd submit credit card receipts to her.
	You know, she was in accounting.
	Did you consider her to be competent in what she did?
	For the most part, yes.
	Do you consider her to be reliable?
	For the most part, yes.
	So in any event, she's sending an email to Keith.
	He's sending it to you, and it appears to attach something described as Infowars February report.
	And if we go down in the email, Dane Sterling, do you know who Dane Sterling is?
	Hmm.
	All I could do is guess.
	And my guess would be he was the one that was distributing the magazines locally.
	And so he sends Lydia the report.
	And the report here is attached.
	Do you know why Heath was sending it to you?
	No.
	People send me so much stuff.
	I have no idea.
	Okay.
	And so this, you know, 36-page document, you understand this to be the locations where the Infowars magazine was distributed in Greater Austin, right?
	That's my understanding, yes.
	all right Did you ever discuss the magazine distribution with Mr. Jones?
	Alex Jones, that is.
	Not that I can recall.
	I mean, this was 2013.
	I couldn't tell you.
	Now, although the magazine may not have turned a profit, it was a source of revenue, correct?
	There was some revenue, yes.
	And then we talked about subscriptions to the video site Prison Planet TV, right?
	Correct.
	And the videos posted to Prison Planet TV would be videos that Mr. Jones would make of his own show, is that right?
	That would be correct.
	So if you didn't see the show live, you could subscribe to get basically videos on demand from Prison Planet TV.
	Yes.
	Alright.
	And he sold merchandise, which largely consisted of DVDs, books, and clothing, right?
	Yes.
	He solicited donations, correct?
	Yes.
	Which he continues to do, correct?
	I don't know if he's still doing it, but I know he did do it.
	That's what he and your colleagues would refer to as a money bomb, right?
	Oh, yeah, I remember the money bombs.
	It would be a campaign over a couple of days to basically raise money for the site.
	Yes.
	In addition to donations, Mr. Jones would sell advertising on his show and on his website, correct?
	Correct.
	Which he continues to do, correct?
	Sell advertise.
	Sorry, can you repeat the question?
	Sorry.
	He continues to sell advertising on his show and on his website, correct?
	did yes He would charge guests to come up who wanted to come on the show, right?
	That is not so black and white.
	So he would charge advertisers to mention their product and stuff on the air.
	I can't remember him charging a guest to come on the air.
	I'm going to show you exhibit 16.
	You see exhibit 16, I pulled up for you an email from you to an individual named Colin O'Dwyer dated July 29th, 2014.
	Yes.
	All right.
	Now there's an email chain here.
	I'm going to scroll down for you.
	But at least in this first part from this, is it fair to say that you are informing Mr. O'Dwyer that you will put him in touch with Nico Acosta to arrange the logistics for somebody to appear on Mr. Jones' show, right?
	That's correct.
	You're down in the chain.
	It's clear that the individual who is to appear on the show is Bill, right?
	Yep.
	Do you know who Bill is?
	Someone with BonnerandPartners.com.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And now I want to go down further in the chain to an email you sent the day before to Cone.
	And now I want to go down further in the chain.
	And in this email, you say, I just spoke with Alex and he likes Bill's work a lot.
	He said he'd do a 20 to 30 minute interview with him next week to help push the book sales.
	You understand that to be push the sales of a book that Bill wrote, right?
	That's correct.
	Meaning that if Bill comes on the show, they talk about the book, Alex's audience, will buy the book.
	Yes.
	And then you say he usually charges at least $15,000 to $20,000 for this type of interview, but will do it because he likes his work, referring to Bill's work, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So is it fair to say that at least at this time in 2014, if an individual wanted to come on to promote something that they had, Mr. Jones would charge them between $15,000 and $20,000 typically.
	Objection.
	That he usually charges...
	I can't remember charging anyone to come onto the show as far as advertising goes or any other thing for that matter.
	But yeah, I mean, he usually charges at least $15,020 for this type of interview, but we'll do it because he likes to work.
	It will be good radio and fit right in our wheelhouse.
	Is there any way for you to send us a hard copy of the book?
	Do some on-air plugs, some podcast spots.
	Yeah, this is a self-pitch to keep some banner ads in rotation after the push next week to keep the sales going.
	I didn't offer this beforehand because I got his approval for these types of advertising.
	In fact, to see if he is offering this says a lot.
	He is animate that keeping these things going.
	We'll do wonders for the sales.
	Mr. Frugette, you were just kind of reading this.
	Sorry, I realized I was reading it out loud.
	I should read it in my head instead of out loud.
	No, I'm glad that you did.
	And I just want to make sure that you've, I do want to ask you a couple more questions about this.
	Do you have, I think, enough of an understanding now of the email to talk about it?
	Yeah, I mean, well, let me finish just to be sure, but just going on everything, actually scroll back up just for a second.
	And I'll note this line of questioning also would be deemed confidential.
	Thank you.
	I believe I intended to mark the line of questioning regarding exhibit 27 confidential.
	I may have missed that one as well.
	Okay, you can scroll down.
	Yeah, so this is this is a sales pitch to them, yes.
	So essentially what you're doing here is Mr. Bonner wants to come on the show to discuss a book that he's written and you are offering him a proposal, an advertising proposal pursuant to which free speech systems will receive $46,550 for different ad placements relating to the book, right?
	Appears so, yes.
	Okay.
	And you tell him that ordinarily Alex would charge $15,000 to $20,000 just for the interview itself, separate and apart from any ad placements, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	And you wouldn't have told him that if that wasn't true, would you?
	Well, that's probably the number that Alex gave me, but that's a typical sales pitch of, hey, we're going to give you a value of this to come on the show if you do this.
	That's the way I'm reading it.
	I honestly don't remember this because it was so long ago.
	I'm just trying to remember, you know.
	But yeah, I mean, I obviously wrote it there and usually charges 15 to 20.
	It's giving an incentive for him to buy the ad package for $49,000.
	In this case, you're basically saying, look, we're going to forego that $15,000 to $20,000, but ask you to purchase ads on our website and also that Alex will read live for $46 plus thousand dollars, right?
	That's what it reads, yes.
	And so while Bill Bonner is not getting charged $15,000 to $20,000 for the interview, that's what somebody would ordinarily charge by Alex, right?
	According to this email?
	I don't recall, but according to this, yes.
	And are you aware of Alex ever telling his audience that a guest he had on who he was promoting had paid him to come on?
	No.
	Nor did Alex ever tell his audience, as far as you know, that content he was promoting, like for example, a book, had been purchased for, in this case, $46 plus $1,000.
	Sorry, can you repeat that?
	Yeah, you're not aware of Alex ever informing his audience that books he was promoting on his website, like for example this book by Mr. Bonner, he was promoting as a result of being paid $46 plus thousand dollars to do so.
	not that i recall I spent some time going through that example as a source of revenue.
	And...
	That was just the last example of a revenue generator that I had been through.
	And to summarize, prior to Alex's entry into the supplements business, the sources of revenue that you recall were magazine subscriptions, prison planet TV subscriptions, merchandise sales, donations, third-party advertising, and, As we went through in this email, paid appearances by guests, right?
	The third-party advertising is the I mean that's what the potential paid for guest is, yes.
	Any other sources of revenue that you can recall?
	Not that I remember, no.
	And since Alex started selling his software, he's done so over the four websites that you indicated earlier.
	He's sold his products on Amazon, eBay, and then on the two proprietary websites that Free Speech Systems owns.
	That is Infowarshop.com and InfowarStore.com, right?
	Correct.
	All right.
	Now, you testified earlier that InfoWarshop.com was supported by 3D Cart software, and InfoWarStore.com beginning in 2015 was supported by Magento, right?
	Correct.
	Those products basically provide all of the online infrastructure you need to transact business online and also provide the seller with commercial information like sales data, cost management, customer information, etc., correct?
	For the most part, yes.
	Prior to 2015, what was the software program supporting InfowarStore.com?
	There was no InfoWarStore.com, I don't believe.
	It was always InfoWarshop.com.
	That was on 3D Cart.
	Okay.
	All right, so you launched InfoWarsStore.com as a new web site in 2015.
	Correct.
	And what prompted that?
	It was 3D Cart was a pain to deal with.
	It was known as a SAS, which is software as a service.
	And they were sort of the original Shopify.
	And we had really no control over certain things, certain features.
	It was just, it was a mess.
	Couldn't you just fire 3D Cart and have somebody else come in and run InfoWarshop.com, like Magento, for example?
	What was the first part?
	I'm sorry?
	Yeah, I mean, if 3D Cart just wasn't doing a good job for you guys in supporting the Infowarshop.com website, why create it a whole different website?
	Why not just have somebody else come in to, you know, be the vendor that supports the website?
	Well, Alex wanted two stores.
	Alex wanted redundancy.
	In case the InfoWarStore.com website on Magento when we launched didn't work, we could always redirect everybody back to Infowarshop.
	As it turns out, the website did work, but you kept InfoWarshop.com as an additional source of revenue, correct?
	It was redundancy in Alex's eyes.
	I wanted to shut it down.
	Alex wanted to keep it.
	And Alex turned out to have been right because InfoWarshop.com continues to generate sales every day, right?
	To my knowledge, yes.
	To my knowledge, yes.
	Okay.
	I'll show you, this is example number 10.
	This is an email from Kevin Hamlet at 3D Cart to you in October 2013.
	And he says that he's going to be your new account manager, right?
	Okay, you see that?
	Yes, account manager.
	I would be your new account.
	Yes.
	And so he was your point person at 3D cart for the Infowarshop website, yeah?
	It appears to be, yes.
	And so, at least as of 2013, you were managing that store, correct?
	I managed e-commerce, yes.
	So that would include this as well.
	Okay.
	Yeah, yeah, I was just trying to make sure I understood how far back we could establish clearly that you were in that role, and at least as of October 2013, you were, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	And in 2015, Alex decided to launch InfoWarsStore.com, right?
	Correct.
	And you were involved in the process of selecting a new vendor to support that store, right?
	The software vendor.
	Correct.
	Good.
	Showing you exhibit 32.
	Do you see an email from you to Tony Guerrero dated May 11th, 2015?
	Yes.
	And Tony's email address is eBay.com, but that's because Magento is an eBay product, right?
	I guess.
	Yeah, I believe at that time Magento was an eBay property.
	And in order to license the software, free speech systems had to provide Magento with responses to a questionnaire, correct?
	I don't remember.
	Okay.
	Well, let's just hear you say in your email, I had filled this out before and sent it to someone.
	I've attached it here.
	I filled it out to the best of my ability.
	Let me know if this will work.
	And that was in response to his email saying, attached is the metrics questionnaire we use to configure licensing, right?
	Yes.
	So you understand from this that in order for them to configure the license they were going to sell you, they needed some metrics on your website, right?
	That appears to be, yes.
	And you provide that to them down here.
	You filled this in in May of 2015 and you calculated that page views per day were 179,306, right?
	Yes.
	And did that refer to page views on the info shop.com?
	It had to have been because that was the only thing going that I can remember.
	Essentially, what you were trying to do is provide Magento with what you anticipated might be the traffic to the new website based on what you were getting on Infowarshop.com, right?
	Correct, because with 3D cart, they were responsible for servers.
	With Magento, it was totally different.
	And so at this time, you were estimating, based on InfoWarshop.com, that you were doing about 12,500 views per hour, correct?
	It appears that way, yes.
	2,602 orders per day, right?
	Yep.
	And about 645 orders per hour, right?
	That's what it appears to be.
	And I'm going to designate this line of questioning about exhibit 32 as confidential.
	And you anticipated that you would be selling products supported By Magento Software over between two and ten websites, right?
	It appears to be, yes.
	Turns out it ended up being two.
	Well, really, just one.
	One.
	Yeah, we, yeah, it was one.
	Because you kept 3D card for the other one.
	Current and projected number of international websites.
	Do you know what that means?
	I have no idea.
	Okay.
	Current catalog size, number of SKUs.
	You understand that to be discrete items for sale, correct?
	Yes, individual items.
	SKUs are SKUs, are a little different than items because, like, one t-shirt will have seven or eight sizes, which means one t-shirt is seven or eight SKUs.
	So, yeah.
	Are there any other products you can think of like that where you're really talking about different variations of the same thing, but they each get different SKU numbers?
	Anything that would have a choice of either a color or size or anything to that effect, but I can't remember anything but t-shirts, really.
	Sounds like what you're describing is it would be more for merchandise as opposed to the supplements and individual care products Mr. Jones was selling, correct?
	I don't really understand that question.
	Well, I'm trying to get what I'm trying to get a sense of is whether we can tell from this number that you approximated, you know, a thousand different SKU items how many products you actually anticipated selling or being available for sale.
	I couldn't tell you that.
	I'm looking at this from a back-end perspective, not from a front-end perspective.
	So a back-end meaning what I see and what has to be done to enter in correct data to fulfill the order versus front-end where just the customer sees it.
	So the number of SKUs is each line item in something.
	Like I said, if we were selling 50 t-shirts, each one had seven SKUs, that's, you know, what, 350 SKUs for 50 front-end items, but on the back end, it's 350 items.
	I understand.
	So putting yourself back in 2015 when you launched this website, do you have a recollection of an approximate number of products that were going to be available for sale over the store website?
	I couldn't tell you.
	It was so long ago.
	and And then 13, it says which third-party or internal systems will integrate with your Magento e-commerce platform.
	And you list several there.
	Do you know what those systems are?
	What they refer to?
	Some of them.
	Why don't you tell me what you know?
	So Power Reviews was a third-party review system.
	So we would pay them to integrate their review system into our website for customer reviews on products.
	List track is, I don't maybe an email thing, but I couldn't, I don't remember really.
	Improvely maybe was tracking links, but I'm not 100% sure on that.
	Google Analytics is Google Analytics.
	Ad Shoppers was like a app or plug-in that would put little Social media icons on the product page, and it would try to engage customers to share on social media to promote the products.
	Stone Edge was our order management system.
	Add-roll, I believe, was the retargeting program we were using.
	And that's it.
	Targeting being if somebody comes to the site, doesn't buy anything, you start serving a maths to try and get them back, right?
	Correct.
	Did you do that both for folks who went to the InfoWars.com website and folks who came to the Infowars store or just Infowars Store?
	InfoWarsStore.
	I don't ever remember doing it for InfoWars.com.
	All right, thank you.
	Were you happy with Magento?
	Yes and no.
	It was better than 3D Cart.
	It was a lot more expensive.
	A lot more expensive.
	But we were able to do certain things that we could not do on 3D Cart.
	Oh.
	It then came time in 2017 to redesign and relaunch the InfoWarsStore.com website, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And you were going to use Magento for that as well, right?
	Correct.
	So the basis behind that was Magento was discontinuing any support for Magento 1.Anything, so we had no choice but to move to Magento 2.0.
	So it was basically we're forced to build a new Magento store.
	So I was just about to pull up, pardon me, I was just about to pull up exhibit 33.
	I'm going to take it down.
	Here it is.
	This appears to be an email, Mr. Fouger, from you to Dr. Jones, David Jones.
	Dated August 7th, 2017.
	The subject is Magento 2.0 contract, right?
	Okay.
	And if we go down, I'll show you what you're forwarding him is the proposal from Magento to build out and design the new website, right?
	Correct.
	Why are you sending it to David Jones?
	I would send any sort of contract or anything to him to have a second set of eyes look at the legalese of things.
	Him instead of a lawyer?
	That's an Alex question.
	Alex, Alex told me to send it, send it to my dad, he'll review it, blah, blah, blah.
	All right.
	And here in this first page, they have a mock-up of what the store website will look like on a couple of different devices, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And I want to go down to page four, I guess.
	It's probably, it's page three of the proposal because the email cover email is page one a little bit.
	It describes partnership goals, right?
	And the first goal listed is to ensure a stable technical and design foundation to support future growth so the site can comfortably handle 125 million in annual sales within three years, right?
	Correct.
	Okay.
	And that goal of $125 million in annual sales was a goal that Mr. Jones set, correct?
	That is Alex Jones.
	Yes.
	And in 2017, which is when this, well, I'll get to that.
	So, and in fact, as of 2020, three years from the date of this proposal, was InfowarStore.com doing $125 million annually in sales?
	No.
	How much was it doing in 2020?
	I wasn't there for the whole year.
	I don't know exactly.
	I think when I left, we were on pace to be around 50 or 60 annual.
	But I don't know for sure because, like I said, I left it in September 2020.
	And I'm going to designate the question on exhibit 33 as confidential.
	Okay.
	So Mr. Jones's goal was $125 million in annual sales by 2020.
	And if we go down, I'm going to skip most of the document although, Mr. Fouget, if you feel like you need to review it for any purpose, just let me know.
	I'll let you know.
	There's specific things I wanted to ask you about.
	Most of this document, you'll recall, is technical in nature as to the services they were providing, correct?
	Correct.
	So, You know, it's a 38-page proposal.
	So here we come down to the fine print.
	Okay, this is now on page 30 of the proposal, 31 of the exhibit.
	And this purports to then be the agreement between Free Speech Systems and Gage Interactive, which was going to be doing the work, right?
	Yes.
	all right You know, further, in order to do the build out, they were proposing to charge Free Speech Systems $266,750, right?
	That appears so, yes.
	Includes signature blocks for you and for Gage's representative, right?
	Yes.
	And you ultimately signed this contract on behalf of Free Speech Systems?
	Probably.
	I'm not 100% sure, but probably, yes.
	Work was done, right?
	I'm sorry.
	The work was done.
	The work was exactly.
	That's what I mean.
	Like, I don't remember signing it, but I most likely did sign it, yes.
	Would have been the appropriate person to do that.
	I mean, I was the one that was in charge.
	It would have been me.
	Okay.
	And they lay out a payment schedule for that $266 plus thousand, correct?
	Correct.
	And I want to go down to this return on investment report.
	Magento, which up until this point had been running, sorry, supporting InfoWarStore.com, provides revenue information dating from the original site's launch, Magento 1.0, in November 2015, right?
	It appears so, yes.
	And according to the contract, the monthly revenue in November of 2015 was $1,069,484.
	And 18 months later, in May of 2017, the monthly revenue was $5.4 plus million dollars, correct?
	It appears so, yes.
	And that's consistent with your understanding of the monthly sales revenue coming through InfoWarsStore.com at those times, right?
	Well, let me throw in something I'm remembering.
	Revenue by month, November 2015 is when we launched the Magento store.
	And we launched it on Black Friday.
	So that $1,069,000 would be probably just for that last week of November.
	But yes, everything else, the May 2017, that looks right.
	So the November number might have been goosed a little bit because of the timing of the launch, right?
	right to the because any the Okay.
	And the target, based on the goal set by Mr. Alex Jones, was to essentially double that monthly revenue within three years, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Go down a little bit further, you also see orders per month again from November 2015 to May of 2017.
	There was about 800% increase in monthly orders, correct?
	Again, that is misleading because that November 2015 is only the last month of because this is only doing Infowars Store, not InfoWars Shop.
	Right, exactly.
	So in fact, you know, there would have been significantly more orders than are listed here because, but those were recorded over on InfoWarshop.com by 3D Car, right?
	Correct.
	Okay.
	But at least on InfowarStore.com, which you agree with me, was the primary site over which Free Speech Systems was selling stuff.
	This was the percentage growth in orders per month, correct?
	The percentage order.
	I gave you a percentage where I was saying that the growth in monthly orders on InfowarStore.com, which was the main site, was about 800% from November 2015 to May 2017, correct?
	On InfowarsStore.com, yes, correct.
	Because when you launch a new store at the end of the month, that, you know, if you just look at this from just a regular standpoint, you're like, wow, it increased dramatically, but it didn't because this is only reporting InfoWarsStore.com orders.
	I see.
	So you're basically starting from zero, is what you're saying.
	Yes, and it also took two, three, four months for people to grow accustomed to going to the new site versus the old site.
	That's interesting because Magento seems to be taking credit for this incredible increase in sales.
	Everybody takes credit for everything with increase of sales.
	I couldn't tell you how many times I've encountered vendors pumping up their numbers to say, look what we did for you, because that's their job.
	They're trying to make money.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	But at least in the numbers they're providing here, they are saying that from the time the site launched until the time it was, until May 2017, the date of this proposal, there was over the InfowarStore.com website a 409% increase in monthly revenue and a 482% increase in the number of orders, correct?
	Correct.
	And you don't dispute that during that time period, Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems actually did experience dramatic growth in both orders and revenue.
	No, no, I'm just saying that what you're showing me, what I'm looking at, is very misleading.
	In order to get a complete picture, we'd need to see the business that Infowarshop.com was doing as of the time of the original launch of Magento 1.0, right?
	Yeah, you would have to go in and combine the data and yeah.
	Right.
	But in any event, two years after the launch, the average daily sales over InfoWarStore.com was $117,007.52, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Every day, InfoWarsStore.com is pulling in about $117,000 as of 2017 in June.
	That sounds about right, yes.
	And over that 18-month period, regardless of who was responsible for it or what the starting point was, according to this proposal, during the 18-month period in which you all were selling stuff over InfoWarStore.com, the site generated $74.4 million, approximately.
	According to this, yes.
	And that sounds about right to you, right?
	For 18 months in that time period.
	That approximately, yeah.
	I mean, I wouldn't say the numbers wrong.
	I wouldn't say the numbers right, but it's around there probably.
	And in order to get a full picture of exactly how much revenue was coming in over the two stores' websites, you then would have to add the 3D cart site as well to this, right?
	I mean, especially going back if you're doing November 2015, yes.
	And then the first few months after that into 2016, but then InfoWarStore was the majority of everything after that.
	And a lot of the business that was being done over InfoWarshop.com migrated to InfoWarStore, right?
	Correct.
	Because all of the plugs that Alex Jones was doing on his show were directing his audience to InfowarStore.com at that point, right?
	Correct.
	Not to mention everything was redirected there.
	Everything was redirected there.
	Yes.
	To the point where now, do you have a sense as to what percentage of overall revenue is generated on the InfoWarsStore.com website?
	Is it upwards of 90%?
	No.
	I mean, if I could, going back to before I left, yeah, that would be a fair estimate.
	I couldn't tell you exactly, but the majority of sales would come through InfoWarsStore.com.
	sad music
	What the annual sales were for 2021 total?
	I have no idea.
	In 2020, you say you were on track for about 50, 60 million?
	Something?
	Yeah, somewhere in that range, I believe.
	That's just looking at it.
	I want to say we're probably around.
	Again, this just estimates don't we're probably around 40, 45 million when I left in September?
	In September, so you had another quarter to go.
	Thank you.
	Mr. Fruget?
	I'm sorry?
	You good to keep going?
	I'm good.
	I mean, I'm here to do this thing.
	Are we going to need to take a lunch or another break?
	We're definitely going to need to take a break, at least for the court reporter.
	And, you know, I would defer to her as to how long she'd like to have for that.
	I'm thinking that now would be a good time.
	I know it's not quite lunchtime there.
	It's close to one o'clock here.
	So, Christy, why don't I ask you, how are you feeling in terms of doing a lunch break now and how long would you like?
	I'm good with 30 minutes.
	Okay, why don't we do that now?
	And that may allow me to do some work here to make the afternoon go as quickly as we can.
	So why don't we take half an hour?
	We'll reconvene at 1.20 Eastern.
	For Travis 1220 more time, of course, Mr. Fruit.
	Okay, I'm going to find lunch.
	I will do my best to be back here in 30 minutes.
	If you, Brent, has a problem, let me know.
	Okay.
	Going off the record, the time is now 11:49 a.m.
	Back from lunch.
	We are back on the record.
	The time is now 12:20 p.m.
	Thank you.
	Welcome back from lunch, Mr. Fouger.
	At the break, I sent an additional, or I asked my colleague to send an additional exhibit that I was trying to pull up before and I couldn't find.
	This has to do with the Emeryx Essentials product line.
	And so, did you get that, Council?
	Yes, exhibit 45?
	Yes, thank you.
	Yes, received exhibit record.
	And before you launch, I feel like I missed.
	I'm just going to note for the record that I missed designating some line I'm questioning as confidential.
	So I'm just going to tentatively temporarily designate the entire transcript as confidential and then go back and fix specifically what needs to be designated.
	Okay.
	So I'm going to pull up exhibit 45 for you now.
	Mr. Fouget.
	And you'll recall that when I was trying to pull this exhibit up before, we were talking about the profit margin on products sold by free speech systems.
	And you testify that I'm paraphrasing here, but that you purchase a product at a certain cost and you mark it up in order to maximize the profit you can make on that particular product.
	Is that a fair summary of what we were talking about?
	It's fair.
	Okay.
	So if you look at this email, this is again from Chris Ellison to you, and two others are copied.
	And it's dated May 30th, 2017, right?
	Do you have it in front of you?
	Yes.
	And Mr. Ellison, who was your director report, said, congratulations, Tim, Patrick, and Q. We've almost exceeded half a million dollars in gross sales.
	We launched May 17th, so that's about two weeks.
	If we can continue this trajectory, the Emeryx Essentials line of personal care products will add about $12 million a year in annual gross sales.
	Proofs in the pudding.
	Attached is the report with all the numbers by CeCe, Patrick, and Q. I'm sure they're bouncing up and down as well.
	Way to go team.
	And so what Mr. Ellison is reporting to you is the performance of this new line of products that had launched in mid-May, correct?
	Correct.
	All right.
	And he's attached a spreadsheet to that email basically showing individual performance of the products within the Emrex Essentials line, correct?
	It appears so.
	Is there any way you can enlarge this?
	I can try.
	So I'm enlarging it now.
	Do you see that a little bit better?
	A little bit better, yes.
	I can keep doing it.
	And I'll just kind of scroll across.
	But what you can see here is essentially Mr. Ellison providing sales information for each day.
	I think that's what he's doing, although I should ask you.
	Now that I have it zoomed in, what do you understand to be the data that Mr. Ellison is providing to you regarding the Emrix Essentials line in its first two weeks following the launch?
	It appears to be a sales breakdown of the Emrex products in the first two weeks, I assume.
	That includes sales over both the Infoboars.com website reflected by the Magento sales and the InfoWars shop website indicated by the 3D card sales, right?
	It appears so, yes.
	And at the bottom of the spreadsheet, Mr. Ellison tabulates the total sales over that two-week period, right?
	I'm going to zoom out a little bit so you can get the full flavor here.
	Okay.
	Yes, I see it.
	And at the bottom, he indicates that the total gross revenue over that two-week period is $496,640.86, right?
	It appears so, yes.
	That's the half a million he was referencing in his email, yeah?
	Makes sense, yes.
	And the cost of that, of those products to free speech systems, was $104,699, according to Mr. Ellison, right?
	Appears so, yes.
	For a profit in that two-week period of $359,998, right?
	Appears so, yes.
	Okay.
	So that's a 400% profit on that particular line over those two weeks, right?
	Objection?
	I mean, the numbers are there.
	It appears that I'm not sure about 400%.
	I can't do that map, but that profit appears there.
	It looks right.
	I think you testified earlier that this wasn't a particularly high-performing product.
	Is that right?
	That's correct.
	For your best-performing products, the profit margin is much higher.
	Is that right?
	Not necessarily.
	Each product is at a different cost.
	This, like all products we initially launched, did great when we launch, but obviously sales slow down over time.
	And that's what I meant by what Chris is implying, 12 million, it never got even close to that.
	Because, yeah, it starts out great, but in the grand scheme of things, I don't remember this being a high-volume seller overall.
	Okay.
	And what about in terms of profit margin?
	Is that profit margin that you're seeing there, which is about five to one, typical, not typical for the products that you were selling?
	This would definitely be one of the higher profit margin items.
	Over time, what have been the highest volume sellers?
	Objection?
	I couldn't tell you exactly without those numbers in front of me.
	You know, there's this.
	Would it be fair to say that, I mean, the reason I asked you that, Mr. Fruger, is because you seem to indicate that this was one of your lower performing products.
	And so I assumed then that you were aware of what some of the highest performing products were.
	Right.
	Go ahead.
	Sorry.
	Let me maybe ask it a different way.
	Is it fair to say that the highest performing products are the ones that Mr. Jones chooses to promote?
	No.
	That's not fair to say.
	It's not fair to say because he will sit there and promote t-shirts that some t-shirts will cost us $5, but some t-shirts will cost us $10.
	And he will promote those because he likes the t-shirt over promoting something that would make more money.
	I say, Mr. Fruget, I've watched a lot of Alex Jones and I've read a lot of the radio logs.
	You familiar with the radio logs?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	And it seems to me, and this is, I guess, more of a statement than a question, Which you can either agree with or disagree with, that the products that Mr. Jones is promoting is almost invariably his dietary supplements.
	The majority, it's fair to say the majority of the time the products he promotes are dietary supplements.
	Is it also fair to say that the products that he promotes most consistently are the ones that generate the most sales most consistently?
	Objection?
	The products he promotes the most are the products that sell the best.
	Yes.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Now we can move on from Emerick's Essentials body lotion and focus on something else.
	I want to talk to you about the trajectory of audience growth over time, okay?
	Okay.
	How would you track audience growth going back to when you first started having significant responsibility for the e-commerce operation?
	To be quite honest, I didn't really track audience growth at the beginning.
	I, like I said earlier, I didn't go to school for this.
	I didn't know anything about this.
	This was me learning on the job.
	So there were a lot of things that I didn't do at the beginning that I learned over time.
	One of those things was the importance of tracking audience growth and the importance of audience growth itself to Mr. Jones's business, right?
	Can you what do you mean by audience growth?
	Oh, you'd agree with me that since at least 2009, Mr. Jones's audience, as measured by the different analytics platforms you all have, has grown every year.
	I have never looked at that or seen that, but if I had to guess, I would say that is true.
	Let me show you exhibit 30.
	I want to give you a chance to change the answer you just gave if this refreshes your recollection.
	Because you indicated that you've never seen or looked at that, but on June 20th, 2014, Chris Andrews sent you an email in which I'm going to share this screen with you in which he provided you with analytics, including audience growth numbers for the websites owned by Free Speech Systems, correct?
	Do you see that in front of you?
	I do see that, yes.
	And if we scroll down, you see here that this particular attachment that he sent you includes sessions,
	users, page view information, among other things, for InfoWars.com for 2009 through 2013 is the last year for which there's complete data here.
	You see that?
	I do see this, yes.
	Now, Mr. Andrews sent this to you, presumably because this type of information was relevant to your role as supervisor of the e-commerce activities, right?
	I would assume so, yes.
	And as you testified earlier, the key driver in revenue to free speech systems was the size of Mr. Jones' audience on Infowars.com, right?
	Yes, correct.
	The more people that come into the properties, the more people go to the store, the more people buy stuff.
	So as you see in April, I'm sorry, 2009, I take it that the number of users would be the most relevant data point here, because those are individuals, correct, who are visiting InfoWorse.com?
	Objection?
	Yeah, I'm not sure if those are individuals that say users, but I am not that familiar with Google Analytics.
	So for users indicates, though, which I'd ask you to just assume for purposes of this deposition, well, what do you understand users to mean?
	When Mr. Andrews sent you this and you're looking at it, what does users mean to you?
	So obviously I don't remember looking at this in 2014 because that was eight years ago, but users would be the number of.
	If I were to just assume and looking at this, I would indicate users assume number of people visiting the website.
	And Mr. Foujet, I mean, I don't expect you to remember this particular not at all.
	But I do want to push back a little bit on this suggestion that this type of data is data that you were unfamiliar with.
	I mean, this type of data about website traffic and usage was the type of data that you were interacting with every day, right?
	Objection?
	No, that is not correct.
	Okay, because I thought you testified earlier that you would have near-daily conversations with Mr. Jones about sales volume activity during his show.
	Yeah, but sales volume and activity are totally different than users and sessions and page views.
	I mean, that's a totally separate thing, at least in my head, it is.
	Okay, because I mean, we were discussing earlier an email in which, you know, Mr. Ellison was informing you of the greatest spike ever on InfoWarsStore.com, and that included sessions, which is a data point here, views, correct?
	Correct.
	This is not the type of data that's foreign to you, correct?
	No, I mean, I'm looking at this, and I mean, I can understand some, if not most of it.
	Some of it I can't, but yeah.
	At least looking at users, in 2009, there were 16.
	I'm going to use round numbers here, okay?
	Okay, yeah, that's fine.
	Because otherwise, I'm going to get confused when I get to like the ones and tens part of it.
	But so, using round numbers here, in 2009, there were approximately 16.7 million users on the InfoWars.com website, right?
	It appears to be so, yes.
	And that grew in 2010 to 25.2 million, right?
	Yes.
	And then in 2011 to 32.4 million, right?
	Correct.
	And then in 2012, it grew again, this time to 49 million, right?
	Correct.
	And then from 2012 to 2013, quite a significant leap from 49 million to 73 million, right?
	Correct.
	And so, did you say correct, sir?
	Yes.
	And so, according to the data that Mr. Andrews was sending you in 2014, there was substantial audience growth year over year from 2009 to 2013, correct?
	It appears so according to this report.
	Right.
	And that audience growth also drove revenue growth during those years, correct?
	I don't know that for a fact.
	I would assume that is the case.
	I believe that to be true, yeah.
	Objection.
	I would believe that to be correct.
	And the audience growth was one of the selling points you had when pitching third-party advertisers, correct?
	Yes, correct.
	So if you look at, for example, exhibit 11, that's true because if you're trying to convince somebody to advertise on InfoWars.com, you want them to know that there's going to be a lot of eyeballs that are seeing their advertisement, correct?
	Objection?
	That is correct.
	And not only a lot of eyeballs, but an audience that is persuadable by Mr. Jones, correct?
	Objection?
	I don't know if that's the case from a sales standpoint.
	And it's audience.
	I mean, whether Alex does what he does or not is that's up to him, but it's the audience.
	But didn't you tell advertisers and didn't you believe that the best sales performance happened as a result of Mr. Jones's live pitches on the air?
	Objection?
	Yeah, I mean, that was part of the sales pitch.
	Yes.
	It was true.
	Yes, I mean, that was what Alex wanted to do.
	So that was it, yes.
	The reason that Alex wanted to do it is because nobody was more effective and no approach was more effective at selling products than Mr. Jones himself, correct?
	Objection?
	I don't know what he is, but Alex does his job on the show to sell products, yes.
	Let's go to exhibit number 11.
	This is an exchange in 2014 between you and Andra Ionescu, who appears to be a media buying agent for a company called Rock Solid.
	Do you remember that?
	No, I'm sorry, I don't.
	So I'm not surprised you don't remember it, but I was curious whether you remembered Rock Solid or just Marketing as companies that advertise on Infowars.
	No, I'm sorry, I don't.
	Okay.
	The reason that I'm bringing this up is because of the email that you sent an individual named Vlad on May 23rd, 2014, in which you say, my name is Tim Fruget and I'm handling the advertising for free speech systems now.
	Do you remember in mid-2014 you had to take over advertising sales in addition to all your other responsibilities?
	Yes.
	Why did you have to take that over?
	Because Alex asked me to.
	Okay.
	And so you say, looking over the records in the past, it appears that you had purchased 6,667,000 impressions at $1.50,000, and that's cost per what?
	I used to know this.
	Or is it click per something?
	Cost per mil, which is $1,000.
	So $1.50 per 1,000 impressions, I believe.
	I'm not 100% sure on that, but that's what's digging up in my head.
	Yep.
	And it says, it appears that we served out 5,537,328 impressions.
	This leaves a balance of 1,429,672 impressions.
	And you described that there had been an abrupt change in the advertising department.
	And so fair to say that you're trying to figure out with this company what is left on what on their advertising spend, right?
	That's fair.
	Okay.
	And there's some uncertainty around that, right?
	There's some what?
	I'm sorry?
	Uncertainty around that.
	Yes, I've never done this.
	So yeah, this is me just trying to figure stuff out.
	But you leave the email by essentially encouraging them to continue to work with you.
	And one of the ways you do that is saying we have grown tremendously over the past year.
	And I believe that you would be more than satisfied with the results that you can obtain from our websites, right?
	Correct.
	And when the tremendous growth that you're talking about is the tremendous growth in the audience that are visiting Infowars.com, which is the primary website on which you advertise, right?
	That'd be fair to say, yes.
	And so that's growth occurring, tremendous growth occurring from 20 and 2013, right?
	deducing yes that appears to be correct I'll go to exhibit 15 now.
	And this is a little bit later in the year.
	So the last one was May of 2014.
	This is email correspondence in July of 2014 between you and an individual, James Garvey, who was looking to advertise on behalf of a company called Self Lender.
	Do you see that?
	Yes, I do.
	Do you remember this particular email exchange?
	I do not.
	Okay.
	Here, you are pitching Mr. Garvey on advertising on InfoWars.com, right?
	Let me read it.
	Yes, it appears so.
	And in order to persuade him to advertise with you, you are reciting for him different statistics about InfoWars.com's reach, correct?
	It appears so, yes.
	At time, InfoWars was selling ads on its Facebook or Twitter accounts for $1,000 apiece.
	Is that right?
	It's what it says, yes.
	And one of the ways that you were persuading advertisers to pay that rate was by educating them and then informing them that as of that time, there were 790,000 likes on the main Facebook page, over a million on the top nine pages, 265,000 on the Twitter account, and almost 375,000 on the top six Twitter accounts, right?
	Yes.
	And you were aware that Free Speech Systems owned and operated multiple social media accounts across multiple platforms in order to increase their audience size, correct?
	I mean, I was aware of the main ones, yes, but I never really messed with social media at all.
	And when you say you never messed with social media, free speech systems did have an Infowars store Facebook account, correct?
	I believe so, yes.
	Did you run that or did Sertuki run that?
	Objection?
	I know it wasn't me.
	Okay.
	And even though you yourself may not have operated the social media accounts, what you understood about them was that by increasing the social media following and in particular engagement on social media, you could increase revenue to free speech systems, correct?
	No objection.
	Can you repeat that?
	Yeah.
	You kind of said that you didn't mess with social media and I appreciate that.
	That you weren't the one posting stuff or tweeting stuff out, but as the director of business operations, you understood the importance of growing audience over social media and in engaging that audience to growing revenue to free speech systems, right?
	That makes sense.
	I never really thought about it, but it makes sense.
	And yeah, I mean, again, like this is 2014, and I was forced to pick up advertising, and I absolutely hated this.
	So I don't remember a lot of it because I blocked it out.
	Well, I do want to push back on you a little bit, Mr. Fruger, when you say that you never thought about that concept.
	I don't recall thinking about it.
	I might have.
	I don't recall because it was such a, it was a while ago.
	But I mean, you do, you know, look, you were responsible for selling stuff, right?
	No, Alex was responsible for selling stuff.
	Got it.
	Fair enough.
	He was responsible for selling it.
	You were responsible for kind of running the operation, the back-end operation.
	I was responsible for making sure everything ran smoothly on that side so Alex could sell and send them there.
	And yes, I was responsible for making sure that part ran smoothly.
	You wanted the store to be as successful as possible, correct?
	Yeah, that was my job.
	Yeah, that's what I mean.
	And so I'm saying that in pursuit of that goal, it's not controversial to suggest, and this is something that you knew and understood, that expanding the Infowars audience on social media and engaging with that audience, thereby attracting more visitors to the website, would increase revenue, correct?
	Objection?
	It would increase audience, which would hopefully increase revenue.
	Yes.
	And you...
	Actually, I'm just trying to pull this up.
	This idea of social media engagement as a way to increase revenue was an idea that you actually discussed with Buckley Hammond, correct?
	I don't recall.
	All right.
	So let me show you exhibit number 26.
	Do you have an email from you to Buckley dated December 15th, 2014 in front of you?
	Yes.
	All right.
	And what was Buckley's role at the time?
	Buckley was the pretty much operations manager.
	I mean, he did everything.
	He worked with Alex on shows, and I reported to Buckley when Buckley was there.
	The key guy, right?
	Yes.
	He was also Alex's cousin?
	That is correct.
	And so when you were sending in this email in 2014, he was your supervisor at the time?
	Yes.
	And you're sending him data from Quant Cast, Alexa, the store, and social media for the third quarter of 2014, right?
	Appears so, yes.
	All right, so let's bring that up.
	Now you're sending this email, and you see where it says below is data on the male-to-female ratio by impressions on Facebook.
	I do see that, yes.
	And if we go down a little bit further, below is the data on the male-to-female ratio by sharing on Facebook.
	Notice how it is a 70-30 split in favor of males sharing on Facebook compared to 60-40 split of male-to-female impressions.
	We could try to try and engage The female audience more, in my opinion, right?
	Yes.
	That's you writing that, correct?
	It appears so, yes.
	And then if we go down to the next page, the next image shows our Twitter male to female demographics on Twitter.
	Men between the ages of 25 to 34 appear to be the leading force among our followers on Twitter, right?
	That's you again saying that.
	It appears to be, yes.
	Next image shows the key indicators on Twitter.
	Those are engagement and influence.
	Notice our influence is great and our engagement is low, right?
	Yes.
	And you know what that meant when you wrote that, right?
	Well, I'm just, I'm obviously looking at what the printouts are and interpreting that.
	Yes, in a sentence forum, absolutely.
	And when you say influence, influence means according to social media, the extent to which Alex Jones is able to influence his followers, correct?
	Objection?
	I don't know what Alex Jones, I mean, here, let me read this.
	The next one shows key indicators on Twitter.
	Those are engagement and influence.
	Notice our influence is great, and our engagement is low.
	I honestly don't know what this means.
	This appears to be something I probably grabbed off of Quantcast because Buckley asked me to, and I'm summarizing the picture.
	And what you're summarizing is: well, and so if we go down a little bit further, you're not just summarizing, you're also interpreting the data and coming up with ways to improve the engagement with the social media audience, correct?
	let me read this Do you mind scrolling down a little bit?
	I'm just copying what the picture says.
	It's your view here that, and by the way, I don't mean to suggest that this, I mean, this is I'm making myself look good here.
	What's that?
	I'm trying to make myself look good here.
	But you can see I clearly just copied what it was on.
	Well, I guess what I'm saying is, I mean, put aside what you were trying to do, it is a fairly obvious point, isn't it?
	That the more your audience engages with you on social media, the more likely they will be to visit your store and be valuable to your business, right?
	That's correct.
	Yeah.
	And so the goal here was to present this data so as to inform Buckley about the desire to increase engagement so as to increase revenue.
	Fair to say?
	Objection?
	I mean, I put together this report most likely because he asked me to, and it looks like from what I did is I copied what was on Quantcast and summarized it for him.
	So if you can repeat the question or rephrase it, I just don't want to fumble up an answer, you know?
	Understood.
	Part of what you were highlighting for Buckley is the fact that you all should be endeavoring to increase your social media engagement with your social media audience because that will result in increased revenue for the business.
	That is what is on here, yes, because it was received from Quantcast.
	That appears.
	In fact, you know that during the years, let's just say from 2012 onward, Mr. Jones' social media audience expanded dramatically year over year over year, correct?
	Yeah, that makes sense, yes.
	And as we've been talking about throughout this deposition, that expanded audience led to expanded revenue for free speech systems in Mr. Jones.
	That's correct.
	What led me to that.
	Sorry, I don't mean to be a pain.
	I'm just trying to.
	It's not being a pain at all.
	What led me to that, though, was I think you said something when I was asking you about this earlier exhibit on 15 about how you weren't really into social media, which I accept.
	But on this exhibit on 15, while you were pitching this self-lender company, you were, for lack of a better term, bragging about the extent of your social media audience and the popularity of Infowars.com, right?
	Yes, that is the purpose of sales.
	Correct.
	And so at this time, according to Alexa, Infowars.com was the 395th ranked website in the United States, right?
	I guess so.
	Oh, come on.
	I'm not messing with you again.
	No, let me put it off for you.
	So do you have the email back up now?
	I'm sorry.
	Yes, I do.
	If you look at the second paragraph, you're informing Mr. Garvey that Infowars.com is the 395th ranked website, correct?
	That was correct.
	In just the last 90 days, you had over 99 million page views, yeah.
	That was correct.
	14.6 million unique users, correct?
	Correct.
	And you were describing a key feature of the InfoWars audience as being one in which people with income more than $60,000 a year are overrepresented compared to the average internet population, right?
	Appears so, yes.
	And the reason that's important is because not only is your audience fast, but it has buying power, correct?
	That's the purpose, correct.
	And to further support your pitch, you provide him with, I'm going down to the attachment now and you can see a listing of the 103 radio affiliates broadcasting the Alex Jones show, correct?
	it appears so yes And you provide him with that demographic information about the InfoWars/slash free speech systems audience, correct?
	Capear so, yes.
	Now, I was trying to make sense of this.
	And, you know, if I'm looking at this, just help me with this, Mr. Fruger.
	The report that was run here, did you know which, well, it seems like in the body of your email which analytics platform you use to generate this demographic sheet?
	I have no idea.
	When you're looking at this, looking at the first demographic category of gender, it appears that the can you tell me what the red and green coloring indicates?
	I have no idea.
	I mean, I was assuming that because you said in the email that the 60,000 plus demographic is overrepresented in your audience, that the green, if you go down to the income category, the green indicated, you know, the extent to which InfoWars audience exceeds the internet average.
	And the red indicated, you know, where it was below the internet average.
	I guess so.
	I'm not sure.
	I mean, this was how many years ago?
	I just don't remember this.
	I'm sorry.
	No problem.
	In any event, the data points that you were using to pitch the advertiser were to persuade the advertiser that Alex Jones'audience was growing and therefore a desirable place for advertisers to pitch their products, correct?
	Correct.
	Let me show you exhibit six.
	Not only did...
	I'm going to ask you a few preliminary questions first.
	Not only did free speech systems generate revenue from advertising, but free speech systems also paid to advertise, correct?
	Yes.
	Correct.
	And exhibit number six is an example of an advertising campaign that Criteo was helping free speech systems on in 2017, right?
	It appears to be...
	Criteo.
	I'm sorry?
	What is Criteo?
	From my recollection, Criteo was a retargeting platform.
	Okay, so we talked about this a little bit earlier.
	earlier so when you say retargeting you're referring to serving ads to individuals who have visited either infowars.com or infostore.com haven't purchased anything and so you serve ads to them in order to get them to come back to the store to buy stuff it would be customers coming that have been to info store.com and
	left without buying yes this software claimed to follow them and serve banner ads to send them back to the store hey thanks for visiting the store you didn't buy anything come back and buy something i mean i'm being you know that's the general idea right uh no this one was okay you visited the store you didn't buy anything there however they
	did their thing if you were like on another website there and they had banner ads on that website that served out through an ad network you would see an info store banner ad hopefully reminding them to come back and buy something so free speech systems at alex jones's direction would spend a certain amount of money with criteo in order to realize
	that
	that revenue right correct and here Mr. Vestergard at Critio is updating Chris Ellison you and others on the progress of that particular campaign right it appears so yes if we just go down to the the first email on the string there's confirmation
	that free speech systems had spent about fifteen thousand dollars to reach fifty percent of their eligible users they generated nine hundred forty one post click sales four thousand one hundred two post view sales, right?
	Yes.
	And so this was a successful campaign, correct?
	It appears that way, yes.
	Right.
	It's two o'clock.
	let's keep going
	Mr. Foujet, when 3D Cart and Magento were set up, part of the infrastructure involved the processing of payments for the purchase of products, right?
	Correct.
	Okay.
	Alex Jones needed to instruct the strike that.
	Alex Jones needed to have the software set up in a way so that proceeds from sales were deposited into free speech systems accounts, right?
	Yes.
	Did you have a role in selecting the accounts to which sale proceeds would be routed?
	No, I would.
	I never messed with any of that.
	My job was to make sure that the merchant processor and payment gateway were there to accept the money and then whatever account I was given was plugged in to send the money to.
	Gave you the accounts.
	I'm sorry.
	Who instructed you which accounts money from sale proceeds should flow to?
	If it was, if we're talking 2015, it was most likely Lydia.
	I would have been when the Magento site was launched, InfoWarsStore.com.
	Yeah, I'm pretty sure it would have been.
	It was whoever was in accounting at the time, I would ask them, hey, what bank account do you need this to go into?
	They would give me the information that I needed.
	Recall, and let's focus on 2015 now for the time being, because I know you had the other shop, and I'll get to that in a second.
	For InfoWarStore.com, when Magento was launched in 2015, Free Speech Systems had an operating account, correct?
	To my knowledge, yeah.
	Do you know whether all proceeds were directed to that account when they entered Free Speech Systems?
	I don't know.
	Government aware of sale proceeds being directed to accounts outside of the Free Speech Systems operating account?
	not to my knowledge Questions for Infowarshop.com?
	Were you aware of where sale proceeds processed over InfoWarshop.com were routed?
	Again, that was bookkeeping or accounting.
	I don't know.
	I just made sure they were set up properly in the store so they could do their job with the money.
	Your role in terms of the cash flow was simply to identify the account or accounts to which sale proceeds should be directed so that the software could properly direct the cash, correct?
	I did not deal with the accounts.
	It was so the way it works is you have a payment gateway and a merchant processor, and those are separate from the bank.
	So when the customer checks out, It goes through the payment gateway to the merchant processor, and then whatever bank account is entered into that merchant processor is where the funds go.
	That I don't, that was accounting.
	I just made sure the payment gateway that connected to the store was there so the money could get to the merchant processor.
	Ralph, but because you were the one kind of managing the software from the free speech system side, fair to say that although you would not have been the one to decide which accounts were entered into the system, you would have been the one once you were told which accounts were there to make sure they were set up properly, correct?
	No, that would be accounting with the merch.
	Accounting have gone into, well, maybe I'm underestimating their yeah, because the merchant processor and the payment gateway are not part of the store.
	They are a gateway, a plug-in into the store with separate, you can't log into the store to see where the money's going.
	That's accounting.
	That's a different thing.
	So your testimony is you would have had no role in either selecting the accounts to which money would flow or setting those accounts up within the software so that proceeds were properly written, correct?
	I'm trying to remember, not that I recall.
	I might have gotten a bank account number from bookkeeping to enter it in to a merchant account, but yeah, I mean, I don't recall.
	it's possible i could have done that I'm going to ask you a little bit about Genesis Communications Network, okay?
	Okay.
	Familiar with who that is?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	What's your understanding of the relationship between Genesis Communications Network and Free Speech Systems?
	So my understanding is that Alex's show was broadcast, well, I don't know the technical terms, but was broadcast through Genesis out to the affiliates.
	And did Free Speech Systems pay Genesis Communications Network in order to be, in order for Genesis Communications to distribute their programming?
	I'm not, I don't know, I don't recall.
	I mean, okay.
	Do you know whether Free Speech Systems sold advertising to Genesis Communications Network on the Alex Jones show or any other programming?
	It's possible, but I don't remember any.
	Did you have any interaction with anybody from Genesis Communications Network at all?
	Every once in a while, you know, if Alex asked me to reach out, you know.
	For what purpose?
	God, I couldn't tell you whatever the fire of the day was.
	I remember talking to Board Op, John Harmon.
	At one point, he would take calls for Alex's show just to say, hey, Alex is going to give you a bonus.
	Talk to Ted, just chit-chatting, you know, no real business stuff, just, you know, talking.
	But I don't, that's about the extent of it.
	I didn't really mess with that too much.
	And so you have no understanding of the financial relationship then between a Genesis and free speech systems.
	No, no.
	okay What?
	We've gone a little under an hour, but I think now would be a good time for a 10-minute break because I may be able to finish up in our next segment.
	So if starting with everybody, can we take 10 minutes?
	Sure.
	I'm fine.
	Going off the record, the time is 1.14 p.m.
	And Jimmy, real quick before you leave, we are back on the record.
	The time is 1.26 p.m.
	Just, this is Jay Wolman.
	I just wanted to clarify something because Attorney Matt indicated that this would probably be his last stretch, and rather than back and forth with me asking this as a clarifying thing later and redirect as need be.
	Mr. Fouge, in the beginning of the deposition, you asked Mr. Fruget about what documents he reviewed, and he mentioned his affidavit.
	You then brought up a Gilmore affidavit.
	I'm informed by Mr. Fruget that, no, it was a different affidavit, the one from this case, that he had reviewed.
	So if you were going to ask him any questions about that, or I just want to make sure you weren't confused as to what he actually had reviewed, you could do that in a stretch before me asking it on cross, and then you come and redirect.
	Sure, yeah, thanks.
	And I should also have said at the outset, you know, there were objections to our notice of deposition filed last night and responses, notwithstanding the objection, because of the timing in which the deposition was noticed and then the objections were filed, we haven't had a chance to resolve those or present them to the court.
	I think it's unlikely we'll have to do that, but I am going to reserve our right to do that.
	And, you know, whether you want to cross-examine him, I assume you will cross-examine him now, Jay, but we can then suspend in the unlikely chance that we may want to get those objections resolved and come back.
	It appears from Mr. Fouge's responses that he just doesn't have anything.
	Correct.
	So far as we're aware, nothing was withheld.
	Okay.
	All right, so thanks for letting me know about the affidavit.
	Okay.
	okay I was trying to clean up my document I opened here before I started home around here.
	Mr. Fruger, you remember that email we were discussing earlier where you were pitching Mr. Harvey from Self-Lender on some on advertising.
	Mr. Garvey, excuse me, let me pull that up for you.
	This is exhibit 15.
	Do you have that email in front of you now, sir?
	Yes.
	If you go down to the his email on the stream on July 8th, 2014 I'm sorry.
	I think I want to go down one further.
	Yeah, where he introduces himself.
	He sends in a email that he's the co-founder of Self-Lender, a website that helps U.S. consumers build credit by creating a small amount of debt and then paying it off.
	We believe that your U.S. consumers would be a great fit for target demographic, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And so, what Mr. Garvey was proposing to do, and the proposal that you offered him, would be to have this company that encourages customers to go into debt to advertise to your audience, right?
	It appears so, yes.
	Okay.
	I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about social media.
	You indicated that you had communicated with Buckley Hammond about the need to increase engagement with your social media audience.
	um I'm going to show you an email from October 2014.
	You can see this here: an email from you to RobR at InfoWars.com.
	Do you see that?
	Yes.
	All right.
	And who is Rob R?
	I believe he was a graphics designer that used to work there.
	I don't know.
	This is 2014.
	This is a long time ago.
	Anyway, you're sending him a Google Analytics Facebook example attachment, correct?
	It appears so.
	Okay.
	And if we go down, we see that you have presented him with a graph for September 23rd, right?
	Yes.
	And September 24th, right?
	Okay.
	See that?
	Yes.
	And September 25th?
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	September 26th?
	Yes.
	27th, right?
	Yes.
	Basically, a full week's worth of graphs showing top channels, correct?
	It appears so, yes.
	What did you mean by channels?
	I have no idea.
	This was 2014.
	Looking at this, I would say this would be like where traffic was coming from.
	That appears to be too graph is the percentage of traffic broken down by the way in which people are getting to the site, right?
	It appears so, yes.
	So if you were to read this chart for September 23rd, what you would see, and by the way, do you presume that we're talking about InfoWarsStore.com or Infowars.com?
	I could not tell you.
	That would be more context.
	I mean, I would say InfoWarsStore.com because it's mainly what I dealt with.
	So if we assume that this, I mean, it would either be InfoWarsStore.com or Infowars.com, one or the other, right?
	Most likely, yes.
	But since you dealt mostly with traffic to the store, let's assume it's to the store.
	And what you would read this pie graph to be saying is that on September 23rd of 2014, 39.3% of the traffic was direct traffic.
	That is people typing in the address And coming directly without referral from any other site, correct?
	Correct.
	25.7% organic search?
	Correct.
	What does that mean?
	Organic search.
	These appear to be just screen grabs off of Google Analytics.
	So I'm not sure if I had to guess.
	I would say organic search is people going to Google or Yahoo and searching.
	That would be my best guess.
	That was 25.7%.
	And then in the orange, 24.2% were people coming to the site through social media, correct?
	Appears so, yes.
	And then yellow, 10.9%, a referral from some other website, correct?
	Appears so, yes.
	And you endeavored to then provide that same information in BarGraph with the number of sessions, correct?
	It looks like it, yes.
	You indicated that this is a Google Analytics report, right?
	It looks like it, yes.
	I'm not 100%.
	I don't remember, but it looks like it, yes.
	Okay.
	And so Google Analytics essentially would have come up with these fields here.
	Yes, correct.
	Yes, correct.
	September 24th, the source of traffic for the website goes from being 24.2% social to 54.2%, right?
	Appears so, yes.
	People finding the site through social media doubles from September 23rd to the 24th, correct?
	It appears so, correct.
	And the next day, the share of people finding the site through social media increases even more, correct?
	Correct.
	It decreased on the 26th, but still the majority of all visitors to the site finding their way there through social media, correct?
	Correct.
	And as we move on towards September 27th, a plurality are getting there through social media, but it's epic.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And you don't recall why you put this chart together for Rob R, correct?
	No, if I'm just speculating, trying to remember if back in 2014, if I were sending anything like this to a graphic designer, it was on the request of Buckley or someone to put it into a presentable thing.
	Because I'm not a graphics designer.
	That would be my best guess.
	Idea being that something was happening that Buckley or whoever was directing your activities at this time would have wanted to see in graphic format, correct?
	That would be my best guess, yes.
	Again, I don't know.
	I don't remember, but that would be my guess.
	Now, you testified earlier that, well, I don't know if we got into it too much earlier, but is it fair to say that your awareness of what Mr. Jones was describing on his show or what was published on the Infowars.com website was through your conversations with Mr. Jones?
	No.
	No?
	No, I didn't talk to Alex about news or his show.
	That wasn't, I didn't care about that.
	That wasn't my job.
	Your testimony that day to day you had no idea what Mr. Jones was talking about on a show?
	That is correct.
	I mean, some days, yes, maybe, but most days I made it a point not to listen to his show because it was too distracting.
	About the website, did you read the website?
	Yeah, I'd browse through.
	Every day you'd kind of just click through the headlines?
	I don't know about every day, but most days, yes.
	And every day an email blast went out to the InfoWars email list with all the headlines from the day, correct?
	That is correct, yes.
	And you were responsible for getting that out, correct?
	No.
	Okay.
	You didn't receive test emails before that went out to the wire list?
	Yes, I would receive test emails to proofread because nothing made Alex more angry than sending out an email with spelling errors and stuff.
	So it was, there was other people that did it too.
	We had all just kind of browsed through and make sure there was no grammatical spelling errors or anything like that.
	Okay, so that was part of your morning routine is to basically proofread the email that was going to be going out to tens of thousands of Free Speech Systems audience members, right?
	I don't remember that, but that sounds, yeah, probably something I did do, yes.
	But I remember specifically, I don't know if I did it every day, but I specifically remembered that was one of the things that I did, yes.
	How is the show so distracting that you wouldn't listen to it?
	Do I really have to answer that question?
	I Alex's voice can get to me, and I don't necessarily agree with a lot of what he says.
	So you want to hear it?
	I don't want to hear it.
	Okay.
	But for...
	But there were ways in which, even though you weren't listening live every day, that you were aware of what he and the website were covering day to day.
	One of the ways you're aware of it is because you would see the headlines displayed in the daily newsletter, the daily email newsletter, correct?
	Yes.
	Now, I didn't do this every day.
	Again, there were other people that got these test emails.
	I'm pretty sure.
	I'd hope so.
	because I didn't proof them every day.
	But yeah, that was...
	When you're proofreading something, you're not really reading it.
	I'm just, I'm looking for spelling errors and all that.
	But yeah, I definitely did that.
	And you would also receive the daily radio logs, correct?
	Yes.
	And the radio logs are detailed summaries of everything that happened on the Alex Jones show that day, correct?
	Correct.
	And you would read those?
	No, not all the time.
	Sometimes I would, yes.
	Part of what was in there that was of relevance to you, obviously, was the extent to which Alex was pitching a product on the show.
	Correct.
	So if I show you example, on September 19th, 2014, you received a radio log from CJ, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Who's CJ?
	CJ is one of the engineers that works over on the production side of things.
	So CJ is sending you an attachment with the daily show log for Friday, March 14th, right?
	Yes.
	2014.
	Correct.
	And you'll see that on that particular show, Wolfgang Halbig joined Alex to, quote, examine the host of peculiarities surrounding the Sandy Oak school shooting, right?
	Yes.
	Now I take it that you personally never had any doubt that 26 people, including 20 children and six educators, were murdered at Sandy Hook on December 14th, 2012, correct?
	Never a doubt in my mind.
	And you never suspected that the United States government was somehow involved in staging or faking that event in any way, correct?
	That's correct.
	You believed from the moment you first heard of that tragedy that Adam Lanza had gunned down 26 people at that school, correct?
	Correct.
	That was what was on the news.
	Have you ever seen Wolfgang Halbig on the show?
	No.
	But anyway, on this particular day, March 14th, Mr. Halbig was a guest, correct?
	It appears so.
	And you can see that the daily log is broken down into hours and segments, right?
	The first hour, segment one, segment two, correct?
	Yes.
	Second hour, segment one, and segment two, Mr. Halbig appears to be on for the full hour, right?
	The first segment titled the video title, Sandy Hook Investigator Threatened by Police, correct?
	Yes.
	And the second, Sandy Hook False Narratives versus Reality, correct?
	correct And then in hour three, Alex plugs the products, right?
	Yes.
	He does that at the 10th and the 58th minute of hour three.
	Yes.
	He plugs My Patriot Supply, which is a food product, right?
	That's correct.
	Info War's Life, which is a brand of products that Alex Jones sells, right?
	Correct.
	Survival Shield and Fluoride Shield, which are dietary supplements that he sells, correct?
	Correct.
	What's molan?
	I don't even know how to say that.
	Molan Labe.
	I would suspect that we had a shirt or something that said Mulan Labe on it, and he plugged it.
	Later in the hour, he again encouraged his audience to visit Infogore's store and plugged two additional products, Mulan Lane and ProPura.
	Yes.
	And this is a typical example of the type of daily log you would receive in which you would be informed in summary terms about what happened on a particular show, correct?
	They would come to my email, correct.
	Did I ever read them?
	No.
	Okay.
	You never read them?
	Every once in a while I'd go through and look at the advertisements, but as far as the content on the show, I could care less.
	Did you develop an understanding, though, just through whatever you were able to come into contact with, that over time, Mr. Jones was featuring the Sandy Hook shooting on his show?
	No, I don't recall that.
	I know that I personally thought it was not right for him to do it.
	But no, again, I never listened to the show.
	I didn't really care what he did on the air.
	I understand that you didn't care, but what I'm trying to understand is whether between the years 2012 and when you left, you were aware that the Sandy Hook shooting was something that Mr. Jones was talking about and denying had occurred.
	I was aware he was talking about it, yes.
	And it was all over the news.
	I mean, this lawsuit and everything.
	Yeah.
	Our lawsuit was filed in 2018.
	Okay.
	So let's take it from 2012 to 2018 during that time for the lawsuit, before any litigation, before your deposition was taken, just by virtue of your employment of free speech systems and your general awareness of what may have been happening.
	You were aware, of course, that Mr. Jones was discussing Sandy Hook on his programming, publishing articles about it on the website, and denying that it had occurred, correct?
	Objection?
	I don't know about all the details, but I know he was talking about it.
	That's for sure, but I mean...
	Well, I mean, I just, it's something you don't talk about that.
	It's just no.
	It's not something.
	Must have been something about the way he was talking about it, though, correct?
	Because there's nothing wrong with just talking about a national tragedy.
	Objection?
	I don't know what he feels or thinks, but me personally, you know, it was a tragedy.
	And it's not something that you cover it the day when it's in the main news and then you go on.
	That's what I personally would have done.
	And, you know, I just, yeah.
	But instead, you became aware that Mr. Jones talked about it for years and that at least generally you were aware that he had denied it had occurred, correct?
	Generally, I don't, I mean, I don't recall specifically, but most likely, yes.
	It's something that, you know, it just wasn't part of my job.
	I don't, you know, not listening to what he says, and that's not, you know, it's just not something I wanted to.
	I mean, you talked earlier about one of the reasons, you know, you didn't listen to the show was initially you testified that it was distracting, and when I asked you why, part of the reason you gave was because you didn't, I think in your words, necessarily agree with what he said, correct?
	I agree with some of what he says, but I don't agree with some of what he says.
	But absolutely, I agree with his right to say what he says.
	I just don't agree with him about half the time.
	Maybe more sometimes.
	Oops.
	I'm happy.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	If you had heard him say that the parents of slain children were crisis actors and that the entire event was fake, you would have found that disturbing, correct?
	If I would have heard him say that, yes.
	Although you didn't, you don't have a recollection of having heard that and not even being generally aware of what he was saying, what you were aware of is that Alex Jones was publishing content in order to attract audience and then directing that audience to his store, correct?
	Objection?
	That, yes, he went on a show, the audience was growing, store was growing.
	Mr. Jones, as far as you knew, was the individual who made decisions about what to publish on his show for the purpose of attracting audience, correct?
	Correct.
	Objection.
	Is that correct, sir?
	Correct.
	Yes.
	the record in case i didn't say it earlier the radiolog exhibit we had just been discussing is exhibit number two I heard earlier, sir, that you would receive daily test emails of the email blast that went out each day.
	So, am I correct that Free Speech Systems would send out an email blast every day with a link to the articles that it had published on its website that day?
	Pardon me.
	To the best of my recollection, yes.
	How many people were on that list?
	I couldn't tell you that.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, let me show you exhibit number 22A.
	Okay.
	I'll try and show you this.
	You have a spreadsheet before you start?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	The first column is email, and the second column is a date, right?
	Okay, yes.
	right I'll represent to you that this was produced to us as the 3D card email list.
	Okay.
	Do you know what that is?
	I would assume that it would be the emails that were on 3D Cart store platform that opted into emails.
	People, when they purchase a product are required to actually provide their email address, correct?
	Yeah, that's correct.
	So anytime somebody purchased a product on InfoWarshop.com, which utilized the 3D card software, their email would be captured and then they would automatically be signed up for the email newsletter distribution, correct?
	I'm not sure if they were automatically signed up.
	I don't really remember back then.
	I couldn't tell you definitively, but yes, when someone purchased something from the store, their email address was captured.
	And that was the email list for 3D card.
	Yes.
	And so at least on this, and you'll see that the second column, column B, is date reg, right?
	Do you understand that to be mean the day, the date that they provided the email?
	The day they registered, correct.
	That's how I would interpret it.
	So this appears to include emails captured from October 13th, 2014, going back to, if we go all the way down, January 1st, 2010, right?
	Appears so, yes.
	Okay.
	And according to the Excel spreadsheet, that's about, if we set aside this test email here, that's about 32,022 emails, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So fair to say that everybody, well, is it your recollection that folks on this email list would have been the recipients of the daily newsletter?
	Well, that depends.
	Because you have the store newsletter, and then you have the news newsletter, which are separate things.
	Let's see.
	Explain in a separateness.
	So people that want the news from InfoWars.com, that's a totally separate newsletter.
	The people that purchase some products, that's a totally different newsletter.
	They're always treated, at least I try to treat them as different audiences.
	Let me show you an email.
	you tell me what type of email this is, all right?
	Okay.
	So exhibit number four.
	All right.
	So exhibit number four.
	Do you have an email before you from Infowars newsletter with a test being sent to you as the recipient?
	Do you see that?
	Yes.
	Now this is September 25th, 2014, correct?
	Correct.
	Okay.
	Is this the news newsletter or the store newsletter?
	This would be the news newsletter because there's no way that title would be sent to the store newsletter.
	You say title, you're referring to the subject line.
	FBI says no one killed at Sandy Oak, right?
	Correct.
	All right.
	And how many, do you have a recollection of how many people were on this distribution in September 2014?
	Gosh, I couldn't tell you.
	Who would have decided what the subject line of the email was?
	It would be most likely Alex or the writers or someone over on the production side of things.
	Most likely Alex.
	He does like to give headlines.
	Beware that Alex Jones chose the title of every video that was posted to YouTube?
	I was not aware of that.
	So this email came to you, right?
	Right.
	Do you have a recollection of receiving it and opening it?
	No.
	It looks like an automated just looking at the timestamp.
	Oh, at 2 a.m. on September 25th, right?
	Yeah.
	Like I said, I mean, y'all probably got all my emails.
	You can see the thousands of emails I always got.
	I don't remember this one.
	In any event, it was a test sent to you, and the reason that you would ordinarily receive these is so that you could, along with others, proofread the email before it went out to the full list, right?
	That's my recollection of why I would receive it.
	So if you scroll down in this email, you see graphics with links associated with them, correct?
	Correct.
	And you understood that each of these links was to an article on the Infowars.com website, correct?
	It appears so.
	Including the article here embedded within the email, FBI says no one killed at Sandy Hook with a subheading, FBI publishes crime report showing zero deaths occurred in Newtown in 2012, correct?
	Appears so.
	Okay.
	And so fair to say that it would have been the normal practice then for this email to go out to the list following approval, correct?
	It's fair to say.
	And if you go to exhibit number three, this is later that same day.
	The email we just saw was from about 12.02 a.m. on September 25th, right?
	Okay.
	And now we're on exhibit number three, which shows, again, an email to you from tv.infowars.com on the evening of September 25th, 2014, correct?
	Correct.
	And this email describes for you and anybody else who may have received it the videos that had been posted to Prison Planet TV that day, correct?
	Appears so, yes.
	Among the videos being FBI says zero people died at Sandy Oak, correct?
	That's what I see.
	This email would have gone out to anybody that was on essentially the Prison Planet TV Distribution, correct?
	I'm not sure, but I would assume yes.
	In other words, that was daily emails went out updating the list of videos that had been posted that day, correct?
	That's why it's called a daily update.
	Yeah, and that's not something I really was too aware of, but it appears so, yes.
	Yourself didn't go check out the videos every day, but as the director of business operations, you were on the distribution, right?
	Yes.
	All right.
	You ever read the article that was published on InfoWars.com regarding the FBI's reporting of deaths at Sandy Hook?
	I don't remember.
	I wouldn't.
	It's not something I would have read.
	You said here, though, you do have a recollection of something like that being published, right?
	Well, I mean, yeah, just look at all this stuff.
	I mean, it's right there in writing.
	It was obviously done.
	But you know that that article actually wasn't just any other article.
	It actually attracted far more traffic than nearly any other article that Free Speech Systems had ever published on InfoWars.com, correct?
	I do not recall being aware of that, no.
	Be good.
	Be good.
	Joe, you, do you know who a Don Salazar is?
	He is one of the writers, yes.
	Do you have a relationship with him?
	Work.
	I mean, not really.
	He's production.
	I'm not.
	He was a writer, wasn't he?
	Yes.
	Do you know that he was the author of the article concerning the FBI's report on deaths at Sandy Hook?
	was not aware of that new exhibit number 23.
	You see an email before you dated October 14th, 2014?
	Yes.
	10:23 p.m.
	Yes.
	This is about three weeks after the email blasts we were just reviewing regarding that article, correct?
	Okay.
	Well, you recall that from the questioning I just believe you can do it, right?
	Yeah.
	And this is you sending a Don Salazar screenshots of Alexa and Google Analytics data, correct?
	It appears so, yes.
	It would be fairly unusual for you to send that type of data to a writer, correct?
	Yeah, it would be upon request.
	Do you know why he requested it?
	No.
	So if you scroll down to the attachment and we look at this, this is data from Alexa, correct?
	It appears so.
	Okay.
	And what it shows, Mr. Fruget, is a spike in traffic around September 24th, 25th, and 26th, correct?
	Yes.
	And it's a noticeable spike from the rest of the line on this graph, correct?
	Yes, it is.
	And this is the type of spike you were testifying about earlier, where if there was some sort of spike in traffic, it was something you would make Alex aware of as well, correct?
	Objection?
	I mean, if it was something I noticed, yes.
	This is hardware's got more publications.
	And I am, we'll take a look at some of the other data, But at least just eyeballing this graph, what this graph shows in this particular tab are unique visitors, right?
	It appears so, yes.
	At the tab we have up.
	And the unique visitors goes from, let's just ballpark it here between 300 and 500,000, right?
	Yes.
	To about 1.75 million at this spike, correct?
	Correct.
	This is to Infowars.com, right?
	Yes.
	Now you have a Google Analytics report, correct?
	Yes.
	And that shows the same spike occurring at the same time, right?
	Correct.
	But instead of visitors, this particular graph shows page views, right?
	Yes.
	And this page views spikes to from what is kind of a rolling average of 1.3 to 1.5 million to just under 3 million, correct?
	yeah it appears so The total page views of during the date range depicted here, which is from mid-September through about mid-October, a total page views of 36.7 million, right?
	Yes.
	And 7.9 users, right?
	Correct.
	And new visitors of about 38.4% during that period.
	Yes.
	Which in your experience is quite high, correct?
	I don't remember regularly looking at new visitors versus returning visitors, but I mean I couldn't tell you one way or the other to be quite honest.
	The percentage of new visitors was particularly desirable from a business perspective, right?
	Because those were new customers you had a chance to add to your customer base, right?
	Yes and no.
	I mean, this was to Infowars.com, not Infowars Store.
	Well, but as you testified.
	And I didn't hear you.
	This was what?
	So your answer again.
	This was Infowars.com, not InfoWarsStore.com.
	But some percentage of new visitors to Infowars.com are going to become new customers, right?
	Absolutely, yes.
	And so if we then go down to the next page, this is an Alexa printout, correct?
	Whereas the earlier Alexa printout we saw showed unique visitors, this one shows page views.
	And again, just like the Google Analytics report we just looked at, shows them spiking to around 3 million, right?
	Correct.
	And finally, we have visits.
	The number of visits spikes to over 2 million, right?
	Correct.
	And you sent this information to Adon Salazar, the author of the article concerning the FBI's reporting of deaths at CDO, correct?
	It appears so, yes.
	It looks like I did it late at night.
	Which would definitely indicate he requested the information.
	Yes?
	You would expect with a spike like this in traffic between September, let's say September 23rd through 26th, that that would result in a corresponding spike in revenue, correct?
	Objection?
	I mean, possibly.
	But we looked at a report earlier that showed a spike and there was no sales.
	I mean, it was worthless traffic.
	So it just depends.
	Let's see if this particular spike was worthless traffic.
	Come.
	I'm showing you now, attempting to show you now exhibit 35.
	Spreadsheet in front of you.
	Okay.
	You see the title of the spreadsheet, Exhibit 35, 3D Cart, 2010 to 2018, and then a record number associated with it?
	Yes, barely, but I do see it.
	All right, yeah, it's kind of faded.
	Yeah.
	But this is a spreadsheet that you would have been familiar with as the director of business operations.
	If I go to the top of the spreadsheet, you'll see the column headings.
	Am I correct that this spreadsheet shows daily sales beginning May 25th, 2010?
	It appears so.
	But I will tell you, I would not be familiar with the spreadsheet because I never looked at spreadsheets.
	3D Cart had a dashboard that I could log into and see, and I would look on a daily basis.
	Okay.
	But whether you're seeing it on a dashboard or you're seeing it in this spreadsheet, this appears to show daily sales as reported by 3D Cart, correct?
	It appears so, yes.
	Which would have been the InfoWarshop.com because the InfoWarsStore.com website was not in operation until mid-2015.
	That's correct.
	And so if we scroll down to the period of time we were just looking at where there was a spike in traffic to Infowars.com, and we scroll down to the same date range of the third week in September of 2014.
	and I don't have a word.
	Did I come to you guys last?
	See, can you not?
	That beginning on September 24th, or let's start September 23rd, September 23rd shows daily sales of $56,597, correct?
	Correct.
	September 24th shows daily sales of $48,229, correct?
	Correct.
	September 25th shows a daily sales of $232,000, $232,825, correct?
	That's correct.
	Okay.
	So sales jumped from $48,000 to $232,000 in that one-day span, correct?
	Yes.
	And then for September 26th, they stayed well above where they were on September 24th, slightly somewhat down from the day earlier, but still at $128,854, correct?
	Correct.
	And that, you would agree with me that that is a two-day spike in revenue, correct?
	Objection.
	I would say that is.
	Well, it depends because what days were these?
	I would agree it was a spike.
	Yes, I agree with you.
	I mean, you don't typically see a jump from $48,000 to $230,000, correct?
	Yes, you do.
	You might see that, right?
	Yeah, there's something interesting happening, right?
	If there's a new launch of a new product, that could also be the case.
	But yeah, something's happening, launch for new products, absolutely.
	What you're seeing happening with the data I've just shown you is a spike in website traffic and a spike in revenue corresponding with the publication and distribution of that article concerning the FBI reporting on San Diego, correct?
	Objection?
	I could not tell you that 100%, but there's definitely a spike in traffic and definitely a spike in sales.
	And it coincides with the publication of that article, Correct?
	From what you're telling me, that is correct.
	Well, you saw the newsletters, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And they were distributed on September 25th, right?
	September 25th.
	Okay, yes.
	So it lines up, right?
	It appears so.
	And if the author of that article was a Don Salazar, that would explain why you're sending him data and graphs showing the spike in activity brought about by his article, correct?
	It appears so, yes.
	Yes.
	At $232,000.
	That was just one day, right?
	Correct.
	One day, one article, right?
	I'm not going to say right to that, but it was one day, yes.
	Again, if I could see what sales were doing, then like if we started promotion, then I would be more definitive on giving you an answer.
	But yeah, there's obviously a spike.
	What I'm saying is there's a possibility there could be another reason there was a spike, but I don't know.
	But yeah, there was definitely a correlation there.
	And if you're seeing a spike in traffic to Infowars.com, that would be the perfect time to run a promotion, right?
	I mean, yes.
	And when you're having your daily call with Alex Jones and you see a spike in revenue like that from $48,000 to $232,000, you're telling them about that, right?
	Yeah, of course.
	Mr. Fruger, at some point, you send an email out to all free speech systems employees directing them to search their devices and
	materials for information and documents that have been sought in this lawsuit, correct?
	Sounds possible, yes.
	Do you happen to have it?
	But I do.
	Let me.
	You don't remember doing that?
	I mean, it sounds like, yeah, I don't remember that specifically, but it does sound like something I would have done.
	Let me see back here.
	We're having a loud discussion outside of this room right now.
	Sorry.
	I will remember that.
	All right, going off the record, the time is 2:19 p.m.
	Back on the record, the time is 2:20 p.m.
	I'll just state for the benefit of the video that the video briefly went out because the videographer thought that I had said I need a moment, but he misheard in part because there's loud noise outside the conference room where Mr. Fouger is.
	Mr. Fouget, are you having difficulty hearing me now?
	It looks like they're finally moving away.
	But yes, I was during the last little pause you had, I wouldn't have been able to hear anything.
	And I wasn't asking a question at that time.
	I was just thinking about what I was going to ask next.
	Yeah.
	I'm not there, obviously.
	Did you have some confidence that they moved on so we can get to you?
	have moved.
	All right.
	this is going to be exhibit, um...
	I don't know where we are.
	This is going to be the next exhibit in line.
	Mr. Frugette have a document in front of you dated January 24th, 2019, captioned Erica Lafferty versus Alex Jones, affidavit of Timothy Fruget.
	Okay, yes, do you mind zooming a little bit?
	Is that better?
	That's much better.
	Chris, I would note that the second page actually appears to have the correct date.
	I don't understand the date in the caption.
	Oh, yeah, thank you.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, so I just scrolled down, Mr. Fruger.
	You can see that although the document on the first page is dated 24, 2019, January 24, 2019, you signed it on March 29th, 2019, right?
	It appears so, yes.
	That's your signature, yeah?
	Yes, that is my signature.
	And when we came back from the break, Attorney Goldman clarified that the affidavit you reviewed in advance of the deposition was this affidavit, am I correct?
	Not the affidavit from the Gilmore case.
	Let me look real quick.
	Yes, that is correct.
	The question I was asking you earlier had to do with your role in producing responsive materials.
	And if you look at paragraph four, you attest here that at the request of council, I asked all employees at Free Speech Systems LLC to perform a diligent search of their paper files, text messages, and instant messages for documents and materials related to the search requests.
	No search turned up any responsive documents, right?
	Yes, that is correct.
	Do you have a recollection as you sit here today making that request to all employees by way of an email you sent?
	That sounds right, yes.
	And am I correct that in that email, you instructed employees who had responsive materials to let you know and to provide them to you, correct?
	That is correct.
	And not a single employee gave you a single document, correct?
	That's correct.
	Is your understanding, am I correct, Mr. Fruger, that Free Speech Systems both purchased and sold all the supplements and self-care products sold over Infowarshop.com and InfoWarsStore.com, right?
	I'm sorry, can you it's your understanding that Free Speech Systems purchased all dietary supplements sold over its websites, correct?
	I believe, yeah, that is my understanding.
	And that Free Speech Systems received all proceeds from the sales of those products, correct?
	From my understanding, yes.
	Okay.
	Document I'm going to show you, sir.
	I believe is exhibit 41.
	You see Exhibit 41 before you, sir?
	Yes.
	This is a Google Analytics report showing 100% of users to access Infowars.com during the years January 1, 2012 through June 16th, 2019, correct?
	Correct.
	And it's a chart showing the landing pages upon which those visitors first entered Infowars.com, correct?
	That's what it says, yes.
	That's what you understand to be a landing page, the first page accessed by the visitor, correct?
	That would be correct, yes.
	Those pages are ranked in terms of most visitors entering the site through each landing page, correct?
	Correct.
	The total number of visitors, I'm sorry, of sessions during that time was 1.2 billion, correct?
	Yes.
	All the landing pages associated with Infowars.com during that seven-year period, the eighth most popular landing page according to this report was designated with the title FBI Says No One Killed But Sandy Hook, correct?
	Correct.
	Take a five-minute break.
	I'll check my notes.
	And it's likely I'm done.
	If I'm not done, I'll just have, I'm sure not much more.
	Okay?
	Come.
	going off the record the time is 2 27 p.m We are back on the record.
	The time is 2.33 p.m.
	Mr. Pruget, subject to the reservation of the rights I made earlier with respect to the objections to the notice of deposition.
	I have no further questions for you.
	Attorney Walman and Attorney Serami may have questions for you.
	Attorney Serami, you wouldn't mind?
	Sure.
	My name is Mario Serani.
	I represent Genesis Communications Network Incorporated, another defendant in this lawsuit.
	I have a few questions for you, not nearly as many as you just were asked over the last number of hours, but I do have a few.
	So I had a few questions actually about some of the products that were sold.
	And to the best of your knowledge, were any of the products that you sold any of them refer to the content of an Alex Jones show?
	And particularly as to this lawsuit?
	No, not to my knowledge.
	You didn't sell these shirts.
	For example, you didn't sell them these shirts like I went to Sandy Hook and I went and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.
	Or no.
	Not that I can remember.
	And nothing that referred to crisis actors?
	Not that I can recall.
	Okay.
	Did you sell anything on your, on the store, not your store, on the store that in any way related, to the best of your knowledge, to Genesis Communication Network or Ted Anderson?
	Not that I can remember.
	Okay.
	I want to go back to one of the things you said.
	Normally there was just one statement, and I think it's fair to say that, and you're welcome to disagree with me, but I think you paused as you gave this response, and sometimes that doesn't come across very well to the reporter.
	So I just wanted to clarify your response.
	I was wondering if I could give some clarity on it.
	When you said you thought, you were asked about the relationship between Genesis Communication Network and Alex Jones's, the other defendants in this suit.
	And you said that you thought the show was broadcast through Genesis or something like that.
	You don't personally know whether Genesis Communication actually broadcast across the airways any radio shows.
	No, that was just my understanding.
	And even here, as you said that, you gave a pause as if you were struggling to find the language, right?
	Yeah, I was just making sure, you know, given the correct answer.
	Well, the truthful answer, I should say.
	Right, so when you said broadcast through Genesis, you didn't think that you weren't imagining, or you're understanding whether the Genesis broadcast across the airways any of Alex Jones' shows?
	No, no.
	My understanding, there was something between Alex and Genesis, and I don't know exactly what it was.
	I just always assumed that's what it was.
	All my questions.
	Thank you for your time, sir.
	Good afternoon, Mr. Fruger.
	I do have a couple of questions.
	Attorney Serabi actually asked one of mine.
	ready um You work for Free Speech Systems LLC, correct?
	Correct.
	Did you ever work for the entity known as InfoWars LLC?
	No.
	Did you ever work for the entity known as InfoWars Health LLC?
	No.
	Did you ever work for the entity known as Prison Planet TV LLC?
	No.
	Do you know anything about those three entities?
	No.
	And although Mr. Matty did do a definition earlier in the deposition, I want to be clear.
	When he referenced InfoWars, did you understand him to be referencing at all the entity known as InfoWars LLC?
	No, when I hear Infowars, I think Free Speech Systems.
	Do you know if any of the analytics that we've seen today or otherwise have ever been used to drive content of broadcasts or articles?
	Not that I recall.
	I mean, it was so long ago.
	They're obviously there.
	I just don't remember exactly what was done with them.
	Was any inducement made to you to rejoin Free Speech Systems as an employee because you were subpoenaed in this action?
	No, that offer came before I even received a subpoena.
	And did you take the offer because you received a subpoena?
	No, I took the offer because we're moving back to Austin, Texas, no matter what.
	Are you aware of any ads ever sold specifically targeting Sandy Hook reporting?
	No.
	Are you aware of any products specifically marketed because of Sandy Hook?
	No.
	Are you aware of any donations ever solicited specifically because of Sandy Hook?
	No.
	There were a few times when you were asked about his revenue, meaning Mr. Jones.
	Did you understand him to be achieving the revenue directly or through Free Speech Systems LLC?
	Free Speech Systems.
	Can you repeat the question, sorry?
	Sure.
	When you were testifying earlier about his revenue, meaning Mr. Jones' revenue, did you understand that it was Mr. Jones receiving revenue directly, or did you understand that it was a company like Free Speech Systems receiving the revenue?
	It was the company Free Speech Systems.
	Do you know how much of that revenue Mr. Jones realizes individually?
	I'm not aware of that.
	And there was an exhibit, I can't remember which one, but there was some time when we talked about profit and we were looking at gross revenue and cost of goods sold.
	And then it referred to profit.
	Do you recall that?
	No, because there's other expense.
	There's overhead, there's shipping, there's, you know, all the time and enter the employees.
	So, you know, it's whatever the definition of profit is.
	So profit is not merely gross revenue minus cost of goods sold.
	Correct.
	Obviously, there's a lot of other costs involved.
	And now you were asked about a spike on exhibit 35.
	Do you recall that?
	Yes.
	Hang on, let me pull it up just for a second.
	I gotta do a screen share here.
	Right exhibit first.
	Alright, do you see this spreadsheet?
	Yes.
	And you see that I've got up here the same exhibit 35.csv.
	Correct.
	Alright, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to select here your little sort and filter.
	Looking at some of word remote, what is count of order?
	The third column?
	I have no idea.
	I don't know if it's the number of specific items in a particular basket or total items sold?
	That is very possible, yes.
	I just sorted on column three from largest to smallest.
	And did you see me do that?
	Yes.
	And we were talking about September 25th, 2014, right?
	We were looking at $232,825.10 that day.
	You recall us talking about that?
	That is correct.
	And so you see that that's actually now the 68th, well actually 67th because the top row is counted.
	67th biggest day, right?
	Right.
	In terms of sheer number of items purchased.
	Number of total and see that actually two weeks prior, September 10th, 2014, there were that's the ninth highest day, correct?
	Correct.
	And it's approximately also $30,000 more in revenue that day, right?
	Correct.
	Do you know was a Sandy Hook article published that day?
	I don't recall.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Now we had some large sales on September 16th and 17th, 2015.
	Do you know what those were driven by?
	I don't remember.
	Like I was saying before, if we launch a new product, then that obviously drives a lot of traffic and sales to the store.
	So without seeing, you know, what was done that day, what products were sold, because we could have launched a new product and we sold 4,000 of something that day, and that was the reason for the spike.
	And actually, we're still looking at where I'm sorting on column 3.
	we talked about September 10th, 2014.
	Also, we got September 11th, 2014, being number 22, meaning number 21, 21st biggest day, right?
	Correct.
	I don't want to be able to do anything.
	No.
	Not at all?
	Yeah, or Yeah, okay.
	So they have Anybody ever keep track to determine whether or not certain events and recording on certain events triggered sales?
	Not to my knowledge.
	So you wouldn't be able to say, for example, whether stories about Sandy Hook were better for sales than, say, stories about the 2016 election?
	I have no way of saying that definitively one way or the other.
	I didn't pay attention to the news stories.
	Anybody ever calculated?
	I'm sorry.
	No, go ahead.
	Did anybody ever calculate how much money was made from Sandy Hook's related stories?
	Not that I'm aware of.
	Were there ever calculations made as to any particular types of stories, how much revenue was driven?
	Not that I can recall.
	You discussed earlier proofreading where you didn't actually read the content, correct?
	Yeah.
	Do you know how many of the people we saw the exhibit where the FBI says no one died at Sandy Hook article was very highly ranked.
	Do you know how many of the people who visited that page actually read it?
	No, I have no idea.
	Is there any way to track which parts of the article they read?
	Not to my knowledge.
	You know, is that they opened the page, correct?
	Correct.
	That's what, yeah, that's what I assume.
	Correct.
	You actually talked about spikes and DDOS-driven spikes, correct?
	Correct.
	What is DDOS?
	From my recollection, I'm just a denial of service attack.
	The first one is a first D is a distributed, correct?
	Distributed denial.
	That sounds right to me.
	Yes.
	And do you know how those attacks are launched?
	I do not.
	I know they are a major.
	I dealt with them a lot with our people that managed our servers for the store.
	They were constantly happening.
	And did each hit to the store represent a single unique individual sitting at a computer or were these done by bots where one person could trigger a thousand devices to visit your store?
	What I was told is it was bots.
	Alright.
	And so do you know from the article rankings that we looked at before whether or not actual humans read those articles or bots happened to open the page?
	I have no way of telling that.
	I don't have anything further.
	Thank you.
	Mr. Maddie may have something to follow up.
	Just briefly, Mr. Fouget, Mr. Woolman asked you whether he asked you about Whether you could say whether there was money that came in directly as a result of coverage of Sandy Hook,
	right?
	And I think your answer was you didn't know, correct?
	Correct.
	And I'm sorry, just give me one second.
	Thanks.
	Kids just got home from school.
	I'm here, Chris.
	Yeah.
	And I think you testified that while there may have been times that you were aware generally of what was being broadcast on the Alex Jones show and on the website, it wasn't something you follow day to day, right?
	That's correct.
	What you followed day to day were the sales numbers and other data relevant to the store's operation, right?
	Mainly store, mainly, yeah, gross sales, number of products, what products.
	And you shared that information with Mr. Jones, correct?
	Correct.
	Mr. Jones was the one who knew what he was covering each day, correct?
	He was the one that decided what he covers.
	So he's the individual who decided what he covers, and he was the individual receiving information from you about sales performance, correct?
	Correct.
	All right.
	This DDOS activity, when Infowars.com or the store was confronting a DDoS situation, how would that get reported?
	Well, we would know that would happen because the website would go down.
	And then I would contact the agency that handled our servers.
	And most of the time, they were on top of it before I was.
	And they would battle whoever was doing it and try to mitigate so the store would stay up.
	All right.
	And so whenever that would occur, there would be a paper trail, so to speak, documenting that it was occurring and what the response was, either from Free Speech Systems or the server management company who was helping you, right?
	No, usually I'd just pick up the phone and call.
	I mean, that was an emergency.
	That wasn't something you would put in, hey, I'm writing an email that the website is down.
	It's a phone call saying, hey, our website's down.
	Let's do something.
	What would they then do?
	They would do their IT stuff.
	I'm not sure exactly what they would do, but they would try and figure out a way to get them to stop attacking.
	Right.
	And so if the website goes down as a result of some attack and your server management team fights them off and finds a way to get the website back on, presumably there would be a record of that event, correct?
	There should be.
	I mean, that's more of an IT thing, but I mean, yeah, I don't know for sure, but I would think so, yes.
	And then finally, Mr. Woolman asked you whether or not Mr. Jones had ever solicited donations, to your knowledge, based on anything related to Sandy Hook, right?
	Correct.
	Okay.
	And so are you aware of Mr. Jones ever going on air and encouraging his audience to contribute to Wolfgang Halbig?
	Not to my knowledge.
	I never listened to this.
	I didn't listen, so.
	And if the website went down as the result of a DDoS attack, right, that would be reflected in the sales activity during the period in which it was down, right?
	Yeah, if it was down, then obviously nobody can access and do anything.
	You're going to see a drop in sales.
	Yes.
	Yeah, I mean, but it was never down more than 20, 30 minutes, then they would come back.
	So, the way I remember one in particular, it would start up, I'd contact the agency, they knock them down, then they come back with another flood, and then they would knock them down.
	And it was just a fight between the two.
	So, there was a lot of times the website wasn't down, it was super slow.
	You know, because so they were using their bots or whatever to hit the thing.
	But, sorry, I forgot what your question was.
	My point was just that, whatever the traffic to the website as a result, if it were the result of a DDoS type attack, that would result in worse website function because it would either slow or go down altogether, resulting in fewer sales transacted, correct?
	Makes sense, yes.
	I don't have anything else.
	Mario, do you have anything?
	I have no further questions.
	Do you know, Mr. Fruget, if the nobody died, FBI says nobody died at Sandy Hook story, did so well and was so great for sales, why didn't Mr. Jones just run that story every day for three weeks?
	I don't know.
	I don't, again, I didn't pay attention to what he did on the show.
	Thank you.
	Nothing further.
	Okay.
	Thank you, Mr. Fouget.
	Thank you, Madam Court Reporter and Counsel.
	If you have any questions about spelling or anything, going off the record, the time is 2:55 p.m.
	This concludes the deposition.

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