Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Sept. 27, 2022 - Depositions & Trials

05:27:20

Watch Live: Alex Jones Defamation Trial: Sandy Hook 'Hoax' Lawsuit - Connecticut Trial Day Nine

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	The End Yeah,
	that's great. that's great.
	Yeah, that's great. that's great.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Good morning.
	One, two, three, four, five, four, five, six, and a half. and a half.
	One, two, three, four, five, four, five, six, and a half. and a half.
	Not much.
	That was about right over.
	The camera is on the right side.
	One, two, three, four, That's all the cameras for.
	I don't know.
	Here at Island, it's going to be a little bit more.
	Oh, how much you do it.
	It's hot.
	we had huh?
	I'm going in front.
	I think I'll be back.
	Say it again.
	Hi.
	walking
	and they moved everything around and part like my wagon and one of your things Way over there.
	And then one of your bikes is on the table.
	We're going to be able to come back on the road and start the park.
	We're going to be able to come back on the road and start the road.
	We've got a new place to get to the direction.
	We're going to be able to come back on the road.
	The turn is loud.
	The turn is very loud.
	I'm not sure if they're coming on the drive.
	It's not a good one.
	I'm not sure if they're coming on the drive.
	The picture didn't spell out here.
	We're going to have to have it.
	We're all out.
	We're going to have to have it come out.
	This guy in person.
	He's like, not like an urban project.
	He's like, he wants you to pull up TV.
	He wants you to pull up TV.
	I'm not going to have it.
	That was a little bit of a tunnel.
	I'm not going to have it.
	I don't know what you're doing.
	It looks like you're doing.
	Yeah.
	I want to have it.
	I want to have it.
	Super big.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I want to have it.
	I want to have it.
	I can't wait to see you.
	I can't wait.
	I can't wait to see you.
	Clears Clears Clears
	Go Hoos. Go Hoos.
	Go Hoos.
	The nice, my smile just got here.
	You know, they were ready.
	I had to run back to the office at the back side.
	It's all right.
	All right, let's go to your kitchen.
	Oh, okay.
	That's what I'm going to do.
	You already told me.
	We're walking with a woman now.
	Oh, we're doing that.
	Yeah.
	Sounds of the car Sounds of the car Sounds of the car - -
	- - - -
	- - - - - -
	- - - - - -
	- - - - - - -
	- - - - - - - - -
	- - - - - - - - -
	- - - - -
	- - - - - - - - - - -
	- - - - - - - - - -
	- - - - - - - -
	- - - - -
	- - -
	- -
	I love you, too.
	I love you, too.
	I love you, too.
	I love you, too.
	I love you, too.
	I love you, too.
	I love you, too.
	I love you, too.
	you can just text me Yep, I appreciate it.
	Alright, I appreciate it.
	No, I'll be in.
	Alright, thanks guys.
	All right, thanks.
	You ever seen whirling balls?
	What's that?
	Whirly Balls.
	Whirly?
	you're like I'm saying I shouldn't see this problem really like a go-kart type thing you got this you never seen really more I think I think it's really great we played it all the way pictures Yeah, it's this thing.
	You've got these little go-karts and you've got these lacrosse sticks almost.
	And you're racing back and forth and you've got to try to score.
	So it's almost like a lacrosse.
	Like go-karts and stuff.
	This is like a whirly ball of a place that we used to go to.
	I went twice, but this is interesting.
	Well, maybe you're not the right person to ask.
	Probably not, but go ahead.
	Oh, I don't know.
	I've been in a barber 10 years.
	That's okay.
	Maybe you're on the right person.
	I have another one.
	I need an haircut.
	The only thing that you don't get on the road for a long time is like, you know, you need like haircuts.
	You need a flowbie.
	Sorry.
	You need to shave it off when you're on the road.
	Anybody can.
	Anybody can?
	Anybody can.
	It just takes time to get used to it.
	and reason look at me like Look at that frozen.
	Nice to have my thick hair.
	Use the color and everything.
	It was really thick.
	And one day, things get thinner, thinner, thinner.
	Damn it.
	My barber's like, I hate you coming, you got such thick hair.
	I'm like, yeah.
	one day that's me right now
	the person that you you
	you you you
	- I'm always trying to stick with, either I'm catching up on a plane, you're on a plane board or table board or team members, you have to get a . - Yeah, I think you always have time on the office. - You gotta go to your office.
	Well, my office I call is my basement prison.
	I kind of like working from home.
	I mean, that's why I go.
	Thank you.
	Can we address now at least permanently, depending on what the court's wishes are?
	This is Ducat No.
	996, our motion for order to protect against mistrial.
	And what we did, Your Honor, is we provided to the court the record of Mr. Jones' press conference on the steps of the courthouse on Friday, including a transcript and a video.
	And you provided it to Attorney Patness as well?
	Yes, Your Honor.
	And Attorney Patis has made a filing in response, which I have had a chance to review.
	You have and have not?
	I have.
	I have, Your Honor.
	So, what we want to bring to the court's attention is Mr. Jones' remarks directed to the jury.
	There have been already five press conferences last week by Mr. Jones on the courthouse steps.
	One on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, two on Thursday, one going into the courthouse before he began to testify, and one at the lunch break, and then there was the Friday press conference.
	And in the Friday press conference, Mr. Jones received a question concerning what he would say to the jury.
	And his response was, I'm basically barred from being able to talk.
	If I could talk to the jury, I would say, go research history and understand how dangerous it is Where they'll pick one event of speech and say it's hurtful, and then use that to set a precedent to knock over all the dominoes.
	Then what we hear on the video, Your Honor, although it's not transcribed, is, and take everybody's free speech away.
	That is the same nullification argument that Mr. Attorney Pattis has been making.
	Your Honor, in our view, this is very much the domain of the court.
	Attorney Pattis has argued in his response to our motion that we are seeking a gag order.
	That's obviously an argument that he wants to make.
	What we have done is brought the conduct to the court's attention, provided the court with the record.
	But we understand that it is the court's core function to protect this process, and it's not our function to determine how that might be.
	I do have some responses to Attorney Pattis' filing, but I think at this point, if the court would I'll hear from Attorney Pattison, then you can respond.
	Yes, thank you.
	Attorney Pattison, I did read your filing.
	And I won't repeat it.
	I thought the court addressed these issues Friday, and my recollection is when it was first brought to the court's attention to representation for me that Mr. Jones has made comments about The comments were ridiculing in character and that the comments to the jury, I don't recall what was said.
	I've reviewed them now and I think the court's ruling Friday should stand.
	There is no gag order.
	No one has sought one.
	There is no precedent in the United States for prospective limitations on speech under both the state or federal constitution as to a trial for a participant.
	I don't think Mr. Jones' comments even reached the jury, which would be a threshold question.
	And even if they did, they're harmless.
	In the context of this case, he didn't contemplate tamper with the jury.
	He was asked a question.
	What he would say, and what he said was, you know, research history.
	Well, one would presume that would be a good thing to do.
	It's dangerous when one event is pulled out of context, or if one event is used to set precedent to knock over others.
	If what Attorney Sterling heard, which I'll credit, is there, take free speech away, that's Jones' view.
	If the court has not sequestered the jury, it has given them admonitions to avoid press coverage, to repeat those at the end of each day, and it is inquired of the jury each day whether there were notes, I think, at the beginning of the proceedings, and there have So, I don't think there's anything for the Board to address.
	Mr. Sterling?
	Your Honor, there is absolutely precedent for issuing orders in this context, and my The bet is that the court is already familiar with it, which is, and certainly Attorney Pattis is, Judge Blahwey's order in the Fotis Doulos case, in which he issued an order Restricting speech of parties.
	Now, again, we're not arguing as to what the court should do.
	It's the court's determination as to whether the process is being threatened and as to what remedy would be appropriate.
	But certainly, Judge Lawley's reasoning and order would be potentially helpful to the court in determining How to proceed.
	And that citation is...
	I've read it.
	I read it at the time it was issued.
	Good.
	May I respond briefly to that?
	Briefly.
	Judge Blawi's order was the subject of a public interest.
	I also recognize that and then it was mooted out.
	And a good portion of the brief that you read I don't think there's a need to test the appellate orders at this time.
	I'm going to deny the motion without prejudice.
	However, it certainly can be renewed if the circumstances change, and I might feel differently, frankly, if there It comes to my attention there's an issue with the jury that it's reached the jury.
	So if that is the case, I will reconsider my ruling.
	At the close of court Friday, according to whether I'd be willing to extend the court's concerns about attempting to communicate with jurors, you can infer that that was done.
	Any other housekeeping matters before we bring the panel in?
	Your Honor, one question and one other matter.
	The question is, so just so we understand, the court's ordinary instructions to the jury will be what happens this morning.
	In other words, the court isn't going to do anything.
	I try to canvass them or mention it every day.
	I think on Friday I specifically pointed out to them that they might be urged to do independent research by others and that my ruling stands and I'll say that as I I think it's necessary, but if circumstances change, if there are new developments, or if it turns out the jury has been affected, then I'll reconsider.
	So the court's instructions will be much the same as they have been on previous games?
	Yes.
	Then we have one scheduling matter, which is that we would like to schedule a charge conference.
	Yes, and I'm not sure, have you spoken to each other to figure out, given your witness schedule, when that would be appropriate?
	We have, and we think Thursday afternoon could be a good time if that works for the court.
	It appears as though the plaintiffs could rest as early as Tuesday of next week, and I don't think I'm repeating Whatever the court rules.
	And so we expect the case to get to the jury sometime next week.
	So I believe a charge conference this week would be helpful so that we'd know what we're shooting at as we prepare our closing arguments.
	All right, let me look at it.
	Let me consider it.
	All right, what else?
	Anything else?
	Nothing here.
	Okay.
	And Judge, I can't recall whether this took place in the presence of the jury or outside it.
	Did the court tell the jury that Drew Jones would be back this week?
	I read the agreed-upon comments, and I thought that we said Wednesday or Thursday.
	Could you vote at the jury if there's been a change in plans?
	If he testifies, it'll be next week rather than this week, so in case they're thinking, you know...
	Why don't you talk to each other and give me...
	some language.
	Yeah, Your Honor, I don't -- my recollection is that we weren't that specific, that we said that he would be returning to testify.
	I think we -- I think we may have said when called by the defense.
	Why don't we look at the transcript?
	We don't have to mention it now and see exactly what was said and then talk to each other and let me know if it needs to be mentioned again.
	I would like to keep our jury informed and I surely don't want to misinform them.
	So if we did say specific dates, I think it might be worth mentioning.
	We'll take a look at that.
	Okay.
	Anything else?
	Nothing from the defense.
	Okay.
	And while Mr. Friar is getting our panel, I neglected to mention that in accordance with judicial finance policy, only those entities that have been specifically authorized may film or record.
	And if anyone violates that policy, they can expect their device or devices to be confiscated and to be removed from the courtroom.
	room so please make sure you obey the policy
	you you you you you you you you you
	you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you
	you you you you you you you you you you you you you you make sure it's so pretty easy to add in this story why not?
	whatever your name is, save the belt not reallycient for it add your name to it that is the 15-istä to carrywise good morning Good morning.
	Welcome back.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	Good morning, everyone.
	Council will stipulate that our nine fine folks are all present and accounted for.
	Yes, Your Honor.
	Yes.
	Please be seated.
	I hope everyone had a nice weekend.
	As I try to do every day, I just want to reiterate the remarks that I've made about avoiding media coverage and not doing research.
	Mr. Ferrer has not given me any notes, but again, if you see or hear anything of a prejudicial nature or anything that you think might compromise Hey, I encourage you to give Mr. Porter a note.
	We would rather deal with any problems as they occur rather than later on.
	So we will please continue to follow that instruction, if you would.
	All right, Attorney Maddie.
	Attorney Koscoff will be leading his office.
	Attorney Koscoff.
	Thank you very much, Your Honor.
	Good morning.
	We call Ian Hockley.
	There's water in the kitchen.
	I'm sorry I ask you every time right now.
	Good morning, sir.
	Just watch your step when you come up.
	I'm going to just remain standing.
	We'll see you in.
	Just raise your right hand.
	You solemnly swear or sincerely affirm that the evidence you shall be of concerning this case shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
	So I'll be God, Lord, and penalty and perjury.
	Thank you.
	Please be seated.
	And then I need you to state your name, slowly spelling your last name for the record, and the state and county in which you live.
	Ian Hockley, H-O-C-K-L-E-Y, Fairfield, Connecticut.
	And sir, I'm sure you've heard me say this a dozen times at this point.
	There is fresh water in the picture and you'll help yourself whenever you would like.
	get yourself situated and you may inquire whenever you're ready to Thank you, Your Honor.
	Good morning, Ian.
	Good morning, Josh.
	Good morning.
	Can we find out a little bit about you and your background?
	Can you tell the jury where you hail from and about your background?
	I was born in England, 1970, a small town called Whist Beach about an hour north of London.
	My father was a greengrocer.
	He sold fruit and vegetables in his father's shop, and my mother was a telephone exchange operator, so she put the slots in the old furniture machines.
	The younger generation is just totally confused right now.
	But can you explain what the town that you grew up, is it a town, a city?
	It doesn't sound like a major metropolis.
	No, we moved, I think when I was two, we moved to a small village called Eastry, a very small village.
	I think there were probably 500 people lived there at the time.
	We didn't have a school.
	We had one pub and one store.
	We went to elementary school in one village, two miles one way, and went to middle and high school in another town the other way, and then actually went back to my hometown for my final two years of high school before I went to college.
	Okay, and do you have siblings?
	Yes, I have one younger brother and one older stepbrother.
	Are they still in England?
	My oldest step brother is in Naperville, Chicago, and my younger brother lives back in England.
	Okay.
	And you said you went to school, you went to high school, and then did you go to college after that?
	Yep.
	It wasn't actually common in the 1980s.
	Not everybody went to college, about 30% of people.
	But I worked hard and I got to college.
	It was called the University of East Anglia.
	The city was called Norwich.
	Sorry, the city was called what?
	Norwich.
	Norwich?
	Norwich.
	We have a Norwich over here, but we call it Norwich.
	Okay.
	And is that a four-year program or similar to a U.S. college?
	A three-year.
	Three-year undergraduate.
	Okay.
	And did you have a particular field of study?
	Yeah.
	I was interested in finance and economics, so I started studying that.
	I wanted to be a public accountant.
	Really?
	Okay.
	And did you earn a degree?
	Yes.
	And did there come a time when you met a special person?
	In my third year, which was my final year, a mutual friend introduced me to this young lady, an American, Nicole, and we started dating.
	In my final year, she was an exchange student from Connecticut.
	She went to Trinity and she came over to my college for the last semester.
	She was a college student here at Trinity in Connecticut?
	Yes.
	And was it in her senior year when she came over?
	She was a junior.
	She was in her third year, but being part of a four-year course.
	So she still had another year of college.
	I was graduating that year.
	Oh, I see.
	Okay.
	It would have been your last year because you have three years.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And so you were introduced by a friend.
	And then tell us a little bit about how you, I don't want to embarrass you, but was there a courtship?
	We got talking.
	We got to know each other.
	There were a lot of Americans who came to our college.
	It was a popular transfer program for English literature and other programs.
	And I remember running into Nicole at the Laundrette.
	You would wash your own clothes on site on the campus.
	And I didn't have a jacket.
	It was January.
	And she had this really nice leather jacket.
	And she very kindly offered it to me.
	And it was her dad's flying jacket from the States.
	So she let me borrow that.
	I happened to let her borrow my leather jacket the next time I saw her.
	And for the next six months at college, we just wore each other's jacket around.
	So I guess that made us an item.
	Nicole had another year, but you were done.
	So tell us about what happened after that.
	Yeah, in the last few months of your college course, you start applying for a job.
	So I started applying for jobs in that city of Norwich to train to be a public accountant.
	So I joined Coopers and Librand when I graduated.
	So I joined there in September of 91. Okay.
	Did Nicole go back to finish her studies at Trinity?
	Yes.
	All right.
	What happened next?
	We kept in touch.
	We weren't officially dating, but we kept in touch, kept each other updated.
	And when Nicole graduated, she moved out to England, I think in the September of that year after she had graduated.
	And we started living together then.
	And where were you living when Nicole came back?
	We're in Norwich.
	We're in a small apartment in a complex in Norwich.
	Okay, and for how long, take us through the next several years, how long did that situation last?
	I don't mean with Nicole, I mean in Norwich.
	Is it Norwich or Norwich?
	Norwich.
	I repeat my question.
	That's all I got, Norwich.
	That's all I got.
	W, or are there Ws, or are there any Gs in it?
	Same spellings here.
	Got it, I got it, okay.
	So for how long were you still in Norwich?
	Yep, Nicole had come over with a work visa, six months.
	She started working.
	She got some part-time work to help support ourselves.
	But after four or five months of that, we knew she'd have to go home.
	The visa was up and she'd be in breach of that.
	So we decided to get married.
	We decided amongst ourselves that we would do that.
	We were both 22 or something.
	But we thought it'd be a great idea when her mom came over to visit at Christmas and meet my parents for the first time that we would tell them.
	And so we did.
	We had a Christmas dinner all together at my parents' house.
	And when all the plates were cleared away, I just stood up and said that we had some news and said that we were getting married.
	How did that go over?
	Silence.
	Someone dropped a plate.
	There was a lot of discussion.
	There was actually a lot of discussion that we were very young.
	We were rushing into this.
	And that was a good discussion with the parents.
	And things they shared about their life and getting married relatively young and how that did or didn't work out for them.
	But after that good discussion, we reaffirmed it's what we wanted to do.
	We wanted to spend our life together, so we carried on.
	And in January, we got married at a small civil ceremony in Norwich.
	And how old were you?
	I think we were 22 or 23. Yeah, a year and a half out of college, yeah.
	And then, when you're married, does that mean that Nicole got an instant visa?
	You can apply.
	It's kind of like the green card system over here, which is what I came through when I went here.
	So you get a right of residency, but no citizenship.
	And now, take us through the next several years up until the time you guys have children.
	Yeah.
	We worked on establishing our careers.
	I qualified as a public accountant.
	I left that firm, started working in industry, tried to move around a few jobs and getting more experience.
	And then I got a job in London, which was about a two-hour commute each way, but it was a good career move.
	And while I was doing that, Nicole got a job across the other side of the country, south of London, well south of London.
	So that's where we up sticks and we moved down to the south coast.
	Okay.
	And was that to Southampton?
	Yes.
	And then did there come a time when you and Nicole had children or decided to have children?
	Yeah.
	Yep, we decided it was the right time.
	We were in our early 30s and we just bought a house.
	We'd been renting for a few years and we wanted to settle down.
	So we got a house with two extra bedrooms so we knew we'd be able to start some small family and we started that.
	So Jake was born on July 4th, 2004. July 4th?
	Yeah.
	2004, okay.
	And then, and Jake is the older brother of who?
	Dylan.
	And can you tell us, when was Dylan born?
	Dylan was born March 8th, 2006, about two years later.
	So Jake and Dylan were pretty close in age, about 18 months?
	Yeah, 21 months, just under two years.
	And how did they develop a relationship from an early age?
	Were they mortal enemies or what?
	I have a younger brother who's two years younger and I sort of saw them developing that same way.
	They'd fight like cats, but then they'd be best friends and play with each other.
	So I think they had what you think of as a normal upbringing.
	Then as Dylan started to develop and we saw he was missing some of the milestones, we noticed that things are different.
	And that took a different turn for their relationship as well, I guess.
	Okay and can you explain a little bit about that to the jury about Dylan noticing things that were different about Dylan that that maybe Jake you didn't see in Jake?
	Yeah um he wasn't so quick to start speaking um I think he was quite late walking but it was actually a preschool teacher um Who I believe was doing some postgraduate work with special education said, we think you should have Dylan formally tested.
	And again, this is back in the 90s.
	And back in England, awareness of disabilities and special needs was different to as it is now, but we had him tested and they diagnosed Dylan with autism about age three.
	Age three, he was diagnosed with autism.
	And this would have been, Dylan was born in 2006?
	Yes.
	So he was diagnosed with autism around 2009, age three?
	Yeah.
	And can you, what do you mean by, can you explain a little more about, about what you mean by there wasn't a folk, or something about Britain not being It was less understood maybe than we do now at causes and how a child can be helped to develop with autism so they can be the best person they can be.
	And it was just very confusing as well as a parent to navigate this.
	I guess you have all your hopes and dreams and your thoughts about what your child might be, and because this was so different and confusing, we just didn't know what that meant for his upbringing.
	And I think Nicole is going to testify later today, is going to speak more about this.
	Did there come a time, Ian, where you and Nicole decided to change your living arrangements and come to this country?
	I worked, after I left my job in London, go back in that two-hour commute from Southampton, I took a job five minutes up the road, which was a relief at IBM as a finance analyst.
	And I've been working there for a number of years, started working my way up through different roles there, and was fortunate enough to be offered a relocation to the United States.
	So in 2010, we started working on that relocation.
	It wasn't going to be an assignment, as in you get sent for two years, you get sent home.
	It was going to be a permanent relocation.
	And you were born and raised in the UK, and what was your thoughts about moving to this country?
	I was really excited.
	I've been fortunate to come here a few times as a kid.
	My dad had brought us here on vacation.
	Then knowing Nicole and traveling back to see her parents.
	We got to live here, as it were, by staying with them.
	So I felt I understood.
	I knew what it was like to live in America.
	I was really excited by the opportunities and what it might offer for the boys as well.
	Okay.
	And now that's the decision to come to America, but how did you end up in the state of Connecticut, and then how did you end up in Newtown or Sandy Hook?
	Yeah.
	The relocation for my job was going to be Soma's in New York, so it's just over the line, the state line.
	So I flew out in the December of 2010. Nicole's mom came up from Rhode Island, helped me tour around, and we were showing different houses that we might want to rent.
	Looking in New York in that area was too expensive.
	Started looking into Connecticut, started getting more affordable, but still quite close to the line, and New York City was just too expensive for my salary.
	But as we moved a little bit further east, It became a bit more affordable and I was visiting the village of Sandy Hook, Newtown.
	I was showing the lovely house with a lovely garden.
	Went to the school, went to Sandy Hook School.
	The principal, Dawn Hawksprung, invited us in and met with her.
	She showed us the school.
	She showed us the special education program that they had and explained the sorts of support Dylan could expect.
	She spent a great deal of time with us.
	And I just think the combination of all those things just said Sandy Hook is where we needed to move to.
	Thank you for that, Ian.
	I asked you a few questions about what you said.
	And we've talked about, and even I've used Sandy Hook and Newtown interchangeably, but can you just describe to the jury, are they the same place?
	You said village of Sandy Hook.
	Yeah, I guess we would refer to it as that.
	Sandy Hook and Newtown are the same town, legally, statutory, but Sandy Hook is a subdivision of or a zip code of, so it's a separate zip code.
	So they're referred to separately, but it's part of Greater Newtown, same school system.
	Sandy Hook Elementary feeds into the intermediate, the middle, and the high school in the town.
	And you talked about visiting with Don Hawksprung, and that's Erica Lafferty's mother?
	Yes.
	Who was the principal?
	Yes.
	At Sandy Hook Elementary School, is that right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And had you visited other schools and visited with other principals prior to meeting with Don Hawksprung?
	No, this was the first town on my visit to find a place to live that had actually gone to the school.
	And can you tell us a little bit about the physical aspects of the school?
	Was it like a school that you had seen back home?
	I guess, yes, it was similar.
	The classrooms for an elementary school, just everything is a little smaller, look laid out.
	It was very neat.
	Actually, the boys school back in England, Chandler's Ford, was very similar, very neat, very tidy, lovely little corridors, all the pictures up on all the walls that the kids had made.
	and I got to go there in December, so it was also very festive.
	And in terms of Dawn Hawksprung, can you tell us what was it about Dawn and the program that attracted you to the school, if anything?
	Dawn just loved all the kids.
	She was greeting them by name and speaking with the teachers as we toured around.
	As I said, they had a special education room.
	Back in England, Dylan was getting one hour of services a week.
	Which we were grateful for then, but they explained that as long as everything fell into place, nothing was guaranteed, that there were aides in the classroom that would be with Dylan all the while he was in school, and they'd have appropriate breakouts where they'd go to the special education room to focus on things for him.
	So it was just night and day for his care, so I really chose the school for Dylan.
	Was the school a toxic waste dump?
	No.
	No.
	Was it a cut out like, did it look like artificial?
	No.
	And was there anything about the school in terms of its ability to provide for Dillon that made it a choice for you?
	Or rather, what were the services, if you could describe to the jury, what services did this Sandy Hook Elementary School offer for Dylan?
	One of Dylan's challenges was his speech.
	His syntax was jumbled.
	It's just, all the words would come out, just not necessarily in the right order, so we could understand him.
	So they explained that there would be speech therapy there, just to help him develop that, start to, you know, I don't want to say develop normally, but just help him with his development so he could communicate.
	Because that was often causing him to have trouble integrating with the other kids, because they couldn't understand him, he couldn't always understand them.
	So he said that would help his integration, help his socialization.
	And for some children with autism, socializing is very hard, so he just thought that would allow him to engage with other kids.
	And then equally having an aide in the classroom, not always 100% dedicated to him, but if he was struggling, would be able to come over to him.
	Again, compared to one hour of services a week back in England, and that's it.
	So basically you noticed a difference between what the school system in England could provide versus the school system here?
	Yes.
	What was the difference?
	It's a huge difference.
	I think there was very clearly a focus on special education needs and Newtown was able to invest in that and provide the staff the services and the expertise to help the children.
	Now, when you were embarked on this, looking for a home and a community, was Nicole part of this process?
	I'd come out by myself, but we spoke every night about what I was looking at, where I was going.
	We had a spreadsheet running between us so we can log everything, and red, amber, green for did they hit?
	You know, would the school system be good?
	Was it a good town?
	Could we afford it?
	Distance to work, opportunity.
	So we're pretty rigorous on how we approached this move.
	This was gonna be a big thing.
	So Nicole remained back in the UK with the children?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And do you remember making the decision to move to Connecticut, to Sandy Hook, and to enroll the children in the elementary school?
	We had three days of touring around, looking at New York and Connecticut, and then on the fourth day, we made the decision.
	We had a phone call and decided that Sandy Hook was the place to move to.
	And did you buy a house?
	No, we rented a house for a start.
	And this was what year, Ian?
	We moved in January 2011. I think it was the 17th, just before two feet of snow landed.
	I remember that.
	Sorry?
	I just remember we arrived and there was snow on the ground and we woke up the next day and there was two more feet of snow.
	No kidding?
	And the boys had never seen three feet of snow before.
	Did they want to go back to England or were they pretty happy about that?
	They loved it.
	You talked about the boys, Nicole.
	Would you mind if we show the jury a picture?
	Exhibit 472, family photo.
	That's not a fault.
	Is there any objection?
	Just a moment, Judge.
	Sorry.
	Yeah, no objection, Judge.
	Okay.
	One second.
	So we could just – let's just use – oh, we've got multimedia here.
	Is this a photograph you got taken here in, or rather, in San Diego?
	Yes.
	And can you just, the left, on the, tell us who these folks are, we know.
	Yeah, on the left in the blue is Dylan, it's me in the red, it's Nicole, and Jake is in the green on the right.
	Were these professionally done photos?
	A friend of ours was, she was trying to develop her photography business, so she offered to take them to be able to practice on us.
	Yeah.
	Okay, thank you.
	You can take that.
	You've been in court, and you understand we're not – were you in court when Bill Aldenberg and Carly Sotoparisi described the scene at the Sandy Hook – at Sandy Hook on December 14, 2012?
	I couldn't be here that day, no.
	Okay.
	I'm not going to ask you specifics about that day, but I do want to ask you, do you recall the last time you saw Dylan?
	December 13th, I came home late from work.
	It was budget season at IBM, and so we were working pretty late hours, and the boys were both asleep.
	So I did see them.
	I looked in the room, but I didn't wake them up.
	Dylan was a very light sleeper, and if he woke up, it was hard to get him back to sleep, so I'd try not to wake them up.
	The next morning, the Friday, the 14th, I needed to be at work by 7, so I got up very early.
	Again, looked in their room, they were still asleep, so just whispered goodbye and got in my car and went to work.
	So you didn't see them on Thursday or on Friday?
	I may have seen them Thursday morning.
	They might have been awake, but I don't remember that.
	And was it your habit to go in when they were sleeping, even though at the risk of waking Dylan up to see them?
	Yeah.
	And did there come a time, did there came a time when you were surprised that something was happening at the school?
	I was in my office.
	I was standing at my desk.
	We all had laptops.
	And an email came in.
	9.30, 9.45, Newtown schools were in lockdown.
	Because I got my work email was attached to the school system.
	And I just pressed delete.
	Because I didn't know what that meant.
	I didn't know if it was a drill.
	I'd only been in the country less than two years.
	So I didn't really know what lockdown was.
	I hadn't had any discussion of what that might mean.
	So I pressed delete.
	So it didn't dawn on you that that was something serious?
	No.
	We can infer, obviously, that you eventually were notified that something had happened.
	My manager came into my room and he knew that the boys were into Sandy Hook School, which I confirmed, and he just said, we need to go.
	And I grabbed my stuff and he drove me back to Newtown.
	Your manager did?
	Yeah.
	How far a drive was that?
	Normally about 30, 35 minutes.
	Okay.
	And...
	I want to skip the details of what happened then, but there came a time when you did learn that Dylan was among the children who had died?
	Yes.
	And about what time of day did you learn that?
	It was the second press conference the governor had given.
	I'm guessing it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
	Okay.
	Have you guys had any plans that weekend or do you recall?
	I don't know.
	And you and Nicole had to make some arrangements, is that right?
	Can you be more specific?
	You had to bury Dylan?
	That was...
	There was a lot of support given, so yes we had to.
	But we were put in touch with the Funeral Home and Community Church in Bethel got in touch with us to help start planning a memorial service.
	So we had two services which we planned, yes.
	Okay, so there was a burial?
	No, just a funeral service.
	Friends and family came on the Wednesday to a small funeral home in Newtown and we received them there and then Dylan was cremated. - And you said, you talked about a memorial, you set up a memorial for Dylan?
	A memorial service was arranged.
	The funeral was on the Wednesday and then on the Friday, as I say, it was Walnut Hill Community Church in Bethel.
	I had met a pastor from there at the firehouse on 1214 and they had kept in touch with us and they really just offered to do this.
	To help us create, the funeral service was not very long and very hard and they wanted to help us create something to celebrate Dylan's life.
	And was that something that you would have done in any event?
	I don't think we had the desire to.
	We probably hadn't had the wherewithal ourselves at that point.
	We were in such turmoil then.
	But they were extremely caring and supportive and provided people to help us create that, to help guide us on what some of the content would be.
	Someone at the church who was great with video, put together a lovely compilation of Dylan that we were able to show there.
	We wouldn't have been able to do it ourselves.
	It was, you know, everything we would have wanted to do to remember Dillon.
	The memorial service was then very close to the service for Dillon, in honor of Dillon's death, right?
	Can you tell us about that memorial service, what it was like, whether it was helpful?
	That was incredibly helpful.
	Friends offered to do readings.
	Some friends from Newtown and those that have flown out from England offered to share their memories of Dylan's life.
	We had a beautiful singing of Hallelujah.
	But the lady who sang it Dylan loved Hallelujah because it was in the movie Shrek, and he just loved watching that.
	But the lady that was going to sing it called us and said, you know, the words are very dark.
	Leonard Cohen wrote an amazing song, but very dark.
	And was it okay if we changed the words?
	And she changed the words.
	Her and her sister rewrote it.
	To really remember Dylan and Anne-Marie Murphy, is that who died?
	And made it something beautiful.
	So that was great.
	And then Nicole and I had the chance to get up at the end and really to share all our memories of Dylan.
	And did you find this comforting yourself in the wake of this terrible loss?
	Looking back, definitely yes.
	You know, it was...
	I don't want to sound wrong, it was a wonderful event.
	We were able to remember Dylan, we were able to share him with eight or nine hundred people who were there, and we had something that we could, you know, treasure and remember.
	It's like we encapsulated his few short years, everything right there.
	I think any, for anybody who's a parent, the concept of losing a child is unthinkable, and yet it happens.
	I wonder if you could, Ian, Just sort of explain from your point of view, you know, describe what it's like to have lost Dylan, to lose a child.
	Not the circumstances so much, but the feeling.
	I think I can only put it in perspective.
	My mom passed away last month.
	I was able to go out to England.
	I was really fortunate to go out there and be with her, and the family was with her.
	And she lived a good life, and she raised us well, and we were able to celebrate her.
	We had a small service for her.
	Myself and my younger brother got up to talk, and it just seemed right.
	You know, she had raised us.
	We cared for her.
	My brother especially cared for her in her later years, and we gave her a good send-off.
	That just seemed the right way to do it, and I'm blessed that we could do it that way.
	It's just completely wrong and topsy-turvy.
	It's the wrong way round that you bury your own child with so few years that they had so much ahead of them that you, of course, had all your hopes and dreams.
	Well, that's true, but they had so much life that they could have lived.
	So it just seemed wrong.
	And so what did you have to hang on to given that feeling, that feeling of wrong and that loss?
	How did you manage to get through that?
	What gave you some degree of comfort, if anything?
	His memories were one thing, but his older brother Jake, to do our best for him, he was Seven or eight.
	He was also in Sandy Hook.
	He was the third grade at the time.
	And seeing how he was struggling.
	So these twin things of making sure that Jake could have the best life for himself and always remembering Dylan.
	Keeping that memory safe.
	Keeping that memory for us.
	And keeping that memory for Jake.
	He'll always have a younger brother.
	You're talking about the memory of Dylan.
	Are there certain things that you would say made Dylan who he was for the short time?
	He had his quirks, autism, struggling with his speech I mentioned.
	When he got really, really animated and excited, he would jump up and down and flap his hands.
	That's how he kind of got all the energy out and he'd jump up and down and flap his hands, which was...
	You couldn't help but laugh.
	It was really cute.
	And he certainly was a servant to repetition.
	He liked to have an ordered day with specific foods and liked to know what is going on.
	And so our world would often revolve around him.
	If we're trying to plan a family trip out, it's making sure that Dylan knew where we were going, what we were doing, when we'd be home, would he have his favorite things.
	So that also made it really weird when he was gone.
	We didn't have to do that.
	And were these the type of memories that you were sharing at the memorial and that others were sharing?
	Yes, yeah, yeah.
	We shared a lot about, you know, he loved the color purple.
	He'd come home from preschool with his big sheet full of purple dots, and he loved bouncing on the trampoline.
	Our little lawn in England was probably not much bigger than the jury area there, so we were happy to move here and have a bit more space and bought a big trampoline, and the boys used to love bouncing on the trampoline.
	They worked out they didn't need to bounce.
	They'd just lay in there, and I would jump, and they would fly up in the air, and I think Dylan could have done that all day if he let him.
	And did thinking about Dylan, telling stories about Dylan, remember his existence and his identity?
	Did you find comfort in that as you were trying to deal with the grief of losing him?
	Yes.
	Incredibly.
	Like I say, I found that event to be uplifting, to be happy, to share the memories and remember him.
	It's amazing what you can pack into six or seven years.
	Yeah.
	Prior to losing Dylan, have you ever heard of Alex Jones?
	No.
	Had you ever done anything to agree with him?
	No.
	Did there come a time when you learned shortly after Dylan's passing that there were something about Dylan never having existed?
	Something about you being in that and families being actors and the hoax.
	We put some of the, the memorial was filmed, and we put some of those videos on YouTube.
	Some were just the video of Dylan that had been created, but others were of the people who spoke or sang.
	And Nicole and my eulogy was, we also posted that.
	And that started attracting comments about my behavior.
	Because I was called out for smiling.
	As I said, I was uplifted and happy by it.
	As happy as you can be.
	Please don't take that the wrong way.
	So I was being attacked for that.
	How can he be smiling?
	You know, I can't remember all the comments that That is what that video started to attract, is people saying, this must be fake.
	He's an actor.
	He's smiling.
	You're out of character.
	All those things started to appear on that until we took that video down.
	Was putting the video up a way of sharing Dylan's memory and the fact that he existed?
	Was that part of the reason he put it up?
	Yes, we created a small website, dylanhockley.com, just to be able to then link to those.
	And we wanted to put together, capture that memorial as well.
	So we shared the text of the things that people had read, and then there was a link to those videos.
	So there was a way to get that out there.
	And did the types of things you started to hear force you to change direction?
	Taking that video down meant that it stopped.
	That seemed to go away for a while.
	So you took the video down because of all these comments?
	Yeah.
	And because you took the video down, you were not able to share...
	And you would put the video up, as I think you said, to help share who Dylan was and that he existed?
	Yes.
	The, uh, and over the next six months here, did you start to hear more and more about this concept that you and other families were actors, that your children never existed, that there was no deaths in Sandy Hook?
	Yes.
	It wasn't immediate for me.
	One of my first memories that this was going on.
	We were warned that Wolfgang Halbig was coming to Newtown and planned to come to the Board of Ed.
	That was one of my first inklings.
	Wolfgang Halbig, do you know whether or not he was made prominent by Alex Jones?
	In 2014, or when that visit was, I didn't know that.
	No.
	That came later.
	We talked about, I asked you whether you thought Sandy Hook Elementary School was a toxic waste dump.
	Do you recall that?
	Yes.
	Can we show a 19D? That is a full individual order.
	You said D as in David.
	Thank you.
	Sandy Hook was loaded with toxic, it was a toxic waste dump.
	Alex, it's a toxic waste dump.
	Who would send their children to that kind of school?
	And that school, based on the photographs by the crime scene technicians or the Kinetic State Police, it is the filthiest, the most deplorable school that I as a principal have ever seen.
	It was all used as a car.
	It had been closed until right before Is that Wolfgang Halbig speaking with Alex Jones, to your knowledge?
	To my knowledge, yes.
	I take it you didn't become, or did you become a regular Alex Jones follower at any time?
	No.
	So can you describe to the jury, Mr. Halbig came to town and describe what How that made you more aware of this?
	I can't remember how the communication came out.
	There were, maybe it was an email saying that the Board of Education meeting will be attended by Mr. Halbig and that he's investigating Sandy Hook.
	My main takeaway was Family members, victim family members, might be advised to just stay away.
	Just for whatever reason.
	I don't remember whether they called it just for safety or you might be questioned, but just it would be best to stay away.
	So I stayed away.
	And this was about in 2014, is it?
	I believe so.
	And prior to that, had you engaged in any changes in your own behavior or curtailed your activities in any way?
	Not at that point, no.
	Following that, was that the first prominent thing that you recall?
	That was the first one, apart from the comments that were going on the video, which, you know, once I was taken down that salt, yeah, that was one of the first.
	And now you, during this time, are you back at work?
	And can you tell us what your work situation was?
	Whether you got back full-time and things like that.
	Yeah.
	IBM were very good and gave me a couple of months leave of absence.
	I went back and was given a different role to see if I could get back into work.
	I lasted about four months in that.
	I couldn't keep up.
	I mean, it's a high-pressure business environment.
	I couldn't keep up with it.
	I asked for a little more leave of absence, this time without pay, to take the summer with Jake and did.
	And then try to go back to work again in a different role.
	But now I couldn't keep up with the work.
	This wasn't a particularly exciting role.
	I guess we all would like to have fulfillment at work.
	But I started feeling that there was another direction to take.
	And we had started a small foundation or a fund for Dylan.
	Actually, a friend started it a couple of days after.
	He said, people don't know what to do.
	But money makes things happen and they wanted to donate money.
	So they were donating money to a fund.
	And in the March of 2013, we made that into Dylan's Wings of Change.
	That's his foundation.
	And as I say, after that second failure to be able to get back to IBM, I asked for a full year's leave of absence so I could start the work on the foundation and foster the mission there.
	So you said the organization that you founded, was it in March of 2013?
	That was really, yeah, that was its inception.
	We had a small group of advisors and they said, you can give the money to a community foundation and they will run the mission, or you can create something yourself, get your tax ID and, you know, recruit a board and start your mission.
	So we took the latter.
	And so the initial funding for this, what became Dylan's Wings of Change, came from the community, or from friends, or both?
	People around the world.
	You know, throughout IBM people had heard about the shooting, and that IBM was impacted.
	And from around the country and around the world people donated.
	I'd like to show the jury a little more about this Is it a charity you founded or an organization?
	Yes or no?
	We call it a foundation.
	Technically it's a charity.
	And I'm just going to pull up for Mr. Hockley-Only, where you know he marked his ID, a homepage of Dylan's Wings for Change.
	Exhibit 539 for ID. Sorry.
	Exhibit 539 for ID. Is that the homepage for Dillon's Wings of Change?
	Yes.
	Would that be helpful in describing to the jury what the organization is about?
	Yes.
	I'd like to call it up.
	Is there an objection to 25th?
	I think March of 2013 was when the organization started, right?
	That was when we started it.
	This is today's website.
	When was today's website?
	Was it substantially changed?
	And if so, when?
	It was probably overhauled three years ago.
	Maybe reformatted.
	Our programs change over time, so we have to add new things in.
	If we can, I'd like to go to the, we have the static PDF image, but I'd like to go to the, if we can go to the URL, if the preferable.
	Can we do that?
	Okay.
	Just give us a second, because I think I want to just show So
	this is the home page of Dylan's Wings for Change.
	Oh, Change.
	Oh, Change, I apologize.
	And it says, using experiential education pedagogies?
	Pedagogies.
	Hold on, hold on one sec, sorry.
	Using experiential education pedagogies to foster empathy and empower people with the belief that they matter.
	Can you describe to the jury, I guess it just scrolls automatically, right?
	It does.
	Alright.
	Can you just describe to the jury what that means?
	Yeah.
	We have a program.
	We founded the program in 2015. It's called Wingman.
	It's one of our programs.
	And experiential education is a little different to just traditional education of a teacher telling someone something.
	It uses activities and games that people engage in.
	And through those games and play, there are outcomes.
	You have discussions about those outcomes and what we learn about each other.
	Because by playing games, we'd be our genuine self.
	So the activities are part of a program to foster connection, people to build trust, respect, ultimately empathy, and we use that program in schools for social-emotional development.
	We use it with corporations for team-building type programs.
	In what way, if any, does the foundation reflect the person that Dylan was?
	He's in our logo.
	Our colors are purple, his favorite color.
	When I'm talking about Wingman, I share about a person who has the qualities of empathy, that they can see someone else who is struggling, that they can reach out and help that person.
	They've got the courage to help another person.
	When I think of it, it was a kid who needed everyone to be his wingman.
	If there were people around him who could guide and advise him, he could be his best self.
	And therefore, in the program, we talk about being our best self for other people and using Dylan as that example that they could help anyone.
	It doesn't have to be a person with disabilities.
	It's a person who is struggling.
	It's a person who's lonely.
	It's a person who's being bullied.
	That everyone has that power to lift someone else up.
	And it looks like a different...
	I can't tell what the ages are anymore.
	They all kind of blend together at some point.
	But what is the age group of the kids that you work with?
	These are middle schoolers.
	We work with high school, elementary school.
	We work with all ages.
	And what we love most about Wingman is that we train the students.
	And they lead the program.
	So within their school, they are running the activities for their younger peers, so juniors and sophomores with the freshmen, eighth graders with sixth graders.
	So it's really about their voice.
	It's not about what me as a 50-year-old guy thinks respect is.
	It's what they think respect is and how they generate it and how they keep it and how they take care of each other.
	And it's pretty unique.
	Okay.
	Let's just scroll through the other picture.
	This and we can put it down.
	Many small changes accumulate with massive effect.
	The flapping of a butterfly's wings might cause a hurricane.
	Okay, next.
	We believe a world headed up by empathetic leaders will act for the good of the planet and its citizens.
	That's one of the core principles?
	Yep.
	Team bonding.
	Team bonding and trust building workshops unlike anything you've experienced before.
	So adults also participate?
	Absolutely, yeah.
	Very effective.
	Okay, and last.
	We are a community inspired to go above and beyond for others.
	Is that one of the other core principles?
	Go above and beyond was something we just were attracted to early on and really fits again with the theme of Wingman, that we can go around life just looking after ourself, and that's good and that's important, but if we can go out and we can help other people too, and that's that go above and beyond peace.
	Okay, you can take it down.
	You talked about a specific event, what you believe to be around 2014.
	Did you become increasingly aware over the last six years, and including up till today, that there was this thing, this thing about you being an actor that has been a hoax, that Dylan never existed, and has it impacted your life?
	From that point on, and so how?
	Okay.
	Yes, it just, the awareness just seemed to grow.
	Another spark point for me was when Mr. Posner was attacked again, just Someone told me, maybe another family member, you know, have you heard what happened to Lenny?
	So there's just this growing realization.
	In 2018, pictures from the memorial were sent to me again.
	Hey, it's party boy Hockley, the fake pair on the Sandy Hook.
	Great Photoshop dude.
	It's that one.
	And so that restarted.
	And that may have also correlated with me and myself starting to talk more publicly.
	As part of the Wingman program, I go out to schools.
	So I'll be sharing about the program and I guess in 2018 I developed like a talk, a keynote, a speech to help launch the program, to help communicate to students, to help communicate to parents, to educators about what the program is.
	So I was just starting to be more visible and out there.
	So that's happening in my personal professional life and getting this increased awareness that there are attacks Either messages sent to us, or the potential for attacks.
	That sort of way on my mind that we can be sent all this stuff, we can be harassed online.
	It's that accumulation of all these stories coming up, of people coming to Newtown, of attacks on Lenny.
	There's this accumulation of This is really serious now.
	This is not something you just brush off now.
	This is really real, and this could be really dangerous.
	And I'm going to ask you about that in a minute, Ian, and ask your response to that.
	But you mentioned as an example of one of these, at least online type of attacks on Instagram.
	I think you said Ian Hockley, Party Boy or something?
	Yeah.
	We could call that one exhibit up.
	What's the exhibit number?
	Right, ID for Mr. Hockley first.
	And what number?
	Sorry, I'm sorry, Your Honor, turn my back.
	That's right, what number?
	I don't know the exhibit number.
	I will report it most efficiently.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	It's Exhibit 539 for ID at the moment, and as far as we can use it, it's fine for us to use it as a demonstrative, I
	I don't doubt what it is, but I don't know why I didn't see it or have notice of it until he got in the stand.
	Do you want to see?
	Yeah, there's more pressure.
	Can we answer the shirt?
	Can we do that?
	If they're going to -- I didn't object on the school thing.
	Are there going to be others in the 530 series?
	if you could just show this to me and i can do it with a very quick one why don't we take a break i can show mr pettis anything that's going to come up it's up to you judge it's a little early all right so we are going to um address some issues so we figured this should be a great time to take the morning recess So it is around 11-12.
	Why don't we come back right at 11-30 sharp.
	Ron will collect your notepads, you'll continue to obey our rules, and I will see you then.
	For recess.
	All right.
	All right.
	Good morning, everyone.
	Good morning, again, Marshall.
	Good morning, everyone.
	Please be seated.
	All right.
	Are we ready for our panel, or have you worked out your issues, or no?
	Yeah, I will have brief objections that I gather you want me to do when the panel's back, but I've had a chance to review things, and Attorney Mayday was kind enough to share with the four exhibits that weren't on the list of the intent to use this afternoon, so I feel like I've noticed Your Honor, would you care to hear any objection now and rule rather than do it?
	I don't think there's going to be any foundation objections.
	There's more hearsay relevance objections.
	You might be able to just rule now.
	If you want me to.
	Whatever is easier.
	What do you think, Attorney Patis?
	I'd wait for the panel.
	They have brief objections.
	OK.
	I'll do it for the panel.
	Sure.
	Shall I have Mr. Hockwick resume?
	Mr. Offick?
	Just watch your stuff and you come unsafe. - Okay.
	Let us know if you'll run out of order.
	Do you have people trip up there?
	I have trip.
	Yes Yes Yes
	Thank you.
	Have a nice morning wake.
	Have a nice day.
	All right, the record will reflect that the panel has returned.
	Please be seated.
	Get yourselves comfortable.
	Something go ahead?
	Yes, that was the go-ahead.
	Thank you.
	Thank you, Your Honor.
	Um...
	Ian, before we had the break, we were talking about instances or the idea that you were hearing about this story that was percolating about you being an actor, Dylan not having lived, nobody being killed, and doing it for some ulterior motive.
	Do you recall that?
	Yes.
	And I think you recalled a particular example that has to do with something about a party boy.
	Yeah, we had a, I believe this was on the Facebook page we had set up for the foundation, so we set that up so we could share what we were doing.
	And we had some friends help as administrators for that.
	That means they can see comments and deal with things, so they would be dealing with comments that came in.
	They just deal with it, but this is one that I saw and I think I screenshotted, just particularly caught it.
	Would they often run interference, so to speak, on things that came in that were hostile?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Yes.
	And if you take a look at your screen, we'll show you what's now still marked 534, which the record should reflect that I read the four as a nine.
	So this is 534 for ID. Right.
	This is, in fact, 534. This is the type of thing that you would get into what you were referring to?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And I'd offer it, Your Honor.
	Hearsay, Relevance, Foundation, Judge.
	Overruled.
	Okay.
	Can we bring it up?
	Okay.
	Now, I'm not a no kind of social media expert.
	Do you know whether this is a Facebook post or an Instagram post?
	This was on Facebook, and this is a comment.
	Okay.
	And the Facebook that you believe this was on was Sandy Hook, Wings of Change?
	Dylan's Wings of Change.
	Sorry, Dylan's Wings of Change.
	So these types of things were not just coming to you and Nicole, but also to your foundation?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	It says, Be warned, Sandy Hook Trader.
	Sandy Hook Trader.
	Ian Hardy Boy Hockley comes here.
	He's the douche that laughed and smiled through his son's funeral, which was scripted and for some reason broadcasted on TV. You talked about the memorial service that you held for Dylan to help remember him.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	And was there a part of that, you said it was uplifting, I think you said?
	Yes, yeah.
	And that, I think he even said that you were, to excuse the expression when you told the jury that.
	Did you smile at some point during that?
	Yes.
	Could you go down to the next part?
	Just look at his dimples.
	Never cried once.
	Just proving further Sandy Hook is a hoax.
	And who is that in that picture with you?
	So there's Nicole, the short fellas Jake, me, and behind us Pastor John Dissendrew is one of the pastors at Walnut Hill Church that's taken outside the church.
	And about what year was this particular example that you brought our attention to posted?
	I believe it was 17 or 18. So this is five or six years after the memorial service?
	Yes.
	Thank you.
	Take it down.
	And have there been instances in public where you have been approached or got the feeling that somebody was watching you and relating you to the Sandy Hook post?
	Have there been instances where you've found messages in other parts of your life, like in your home, in your car, that kind of thing?
	We would get mail posted to our house in Sandy Hook.
	After that house we were renting, we bought a house eventually in Sandy Hook as well.
	So mail would come there.
	And I do...
	I want to ask you, did there come a time when you and Nicole separated and ultimately got a divorce?
	Yes.
	I believe it was in 2015. We were struggling as a couple.
	We went to therapy.
	We saw a therapist to try and work things out and ultimately took the decision that we should get divorced.
	And are you still, you remained friends with Nicole?
	Yes.
	And The house that you were living with up until the time of the divorce with Nicole and Jake, was that the house that you initially rented when you moved over here?
	No.
	We moved out of that house because of where it was on Yogananda Street and some friends that they were In Florida for the winter, so they just let us use their house for a couple of months while we worked out what was going on.
	And then we started house hunting and bought a house in San Diego.
	Okay.
	And did Nicole stay in the house that you bought and did you move out?
	Yes, we did some kind of sharing arrangement that we would work out, but ultimately I moved out and found an apartment in another town, but would co-parent and look after Jake part of the time.
	Ultimately the house was sold.
	Okay, so you continued to co-parent Jake and look after him as you were struggling through this time?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And can you recall, give us any other examples of any other instances in which you've been approached or, you know, other than the type of instances give us any other examples of any other instances in which you've been approached or, you know, other Anything else that you can, that is, you know, just comes to mind as an example of the kind of things that you have to endure?
	Yeah, just an example.
	Last year, I was at Costco in Brookfield and came back to our car, my car, and there was a small business card shaped piece of paper stuck underneath the windscreen wiper and pulling it out.
	There's a picture of Robbie Parker on one side with some words about it being fake and on the other side, the McDonald family as well.
	That was on my car, and only my car.
	Like, the cars on the side didn't have, just my car had it on.
	Sorry, so somebody put something, and can we pull up 473 for Ian?
	His ID at the moment.
	I'll share this with Council.
	at the break is that the uh there's a there's a front part you said there's a back part that was one side okay is five is 473 both sides so we'll show you the next page that was the other side okay i'd offer this your honor foundation what's a card that was laid on it can we pull up uh 473 So
	is this the, you talked about it being a card, and was this the, what you mean, like a business card?
	Yeah, it was that kind of shape, yeah.
	And is this the card that was on your, you said a windscreen?
	Yeah, tucked under the, well you'd put a flyer if you were out putting flyers on cars.
	Okay, that's a British for windshield?
	I guess.
	Okay.
	And this was at Costco?
	Yes, in Brookfield.
	I'm sorry?
	In Brookfield.
	Okay.
	And you looked at other cars and there were no cards on other cars?
	I glanced at the cars either side.
	I didn't do a march all the way up and down the road.
	So, do you know whether or not somebody saw you and put this on the card?
	I don't know, but that was my assumption.
	And can you show the other side of this card?
	This is another family that was involved.
	It lost a child.
	Yes.
	And when was this?
	Last year.
	Sometime last year, I don't recall.
	Did you ever find out who put this on your car?
	- No. - Take it down.
	Now, I asked you about your lifestyle and how it might have been affected for you personally and the way you go about your daily life and your professional life.
	Can you explain whether or not that has changed over the years as it relates to this Alex Jones narrative?
	I started becoming reticent.
	You know when you meet people, you're traveling, out of state especially, and you introduce yourself and where you're from.
	And I started becoming reticent saying where I'm from.
	They'll pick up an accent anyway, so it's always a joke.
	Oh, this is a Connecticut accent.
	But apart from that, I wouldn't go any further than that.
	And I'd leave it there.
	I certainly wouldn't mention I was from Sandy Hook.
	And Newtown's too well a name connected with it.
	So I just leave it.
	Connecticut.
	Fairfield County.
	And just leave it like that.
	Why?
	I didn't want any questions.
	I didn't want to come across someone that believed it was Hope.
	In some way also I didn't want someone that really felt badly about what had happened as well because of all of that emotion that would be generated by that.
	But most definitely I didn't want to run into someone that wanted to confront me about Sandy Hook.
	Now, in order to educate the community, the larger community, about the mission and goals of Dillon's Wings for Change, did that require you or did you take any steps to further that education and did that require you to do public speaking and things like that?
	Once we started the Wingman program, which was 2015 and that started to grow, we only started with two schools running the program, but either to share about it to a school or a community or a district or to go into a school that's running the program, I developed a talk.
	I developed the journey from Sandy Hook The story about Dylan to share him, what the program is about, what our goals are, what we're hoping to do, and then I wrap it up with a story about the butterfly effect.
	So that became about a 40-minute presentation.
	And do you do this to an audience of children or young folks, and also an audience of parents and adults?
	If I'm going into a school, then it'll be during the school day and they might hold an assembly and I get to speak to them.
	But some schools will add on an evening session to invite parents to come in so they understand what's going on in the school and this new program they brought in.
	So it can be both.
	And in what way or ways, if any, has the narrative of you being an actor faking your child's death for some other purposes of Dylan never having lived affect the way you go about that?
	I'm very intentional to make sure that story is there and I will warn the audience that we will be talking about the events of 1214 because I want to establish my truth and my journey.
	So I'm very definite I'm doing that, but I'm also aware That that could draw out someone who's there, who wants to stop me, obstruct me, attack me.
	I'm just constantly aware that that's a thing.
	But in weighing those two out, this wins out that I'm going to tell this story, I'm going to share about Dylan.
	And so I just have to be careful.
	I just have to be careful about where I go and speak, who I go to.
	I go through my own little routine every single time I do it.
	It's just about knowing who is there.
	Watching the people come in.
	These are schools.
	They might have a resource officer there, but I don't get security to go to these things.
	So it's just simple precautions to be safe.
	But I know there's a couple of points in my talk.
	I'll be talking in depth about Sandy Hook.
	I'll be talking about Dylan.
	If something's going to happen, I expect that's when it will be.
	But I also don't stereotype anybody.
	I'm not looking for any particular type of person.
	I'm just on my guard.
	Prior to this part of it percolating for you, were you the type of person who was always on their guard that something was going to happen?
	No.
	No, I'd never had that experience in life.
	You said there's no, you don't stereotype people.
	Is that right?
	Yes, actually it's part of our beliefs in women.
	We're all unique, we're all very different, we all have great qualities, so I don't stereotype the sort of person that might choose to attack me, same as I don't stereotype the type of person that might want to hug me.
	But are you, and are you on constant vigilance for these types of what could, out of the ordinary situations that could develop?
	Yes.
	Were you in the courtroom when Mr. Watts explained the reach of this narrative to the jury?
	Yes.
	Objection.
	And do you have relevance?
	You heard Mr. Watts explain that based simply on six years between 2012 and 2018 and only three social media platforms, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, the minimum Twitter, and Facebook, the minimum reach was 550 million impressions.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	What is that like to have that much said to that many people in so many everywhere in the United States for you.
	So it's frightening.
	It's abominable that it should even happen, but personally I feel it's staggering and it's frightening the sheer number of people that this has reached and I will extrapolate that therefore the people it's affected.
	The people that it is inspired to attack us.
	To attack me.
	You said there's no stereotype.
	Can you identify what these people look like?
	Objection, speculation.
	Sustained.
	Can we show 19 igloo?
	19 I Thank you If you go out to school of other kids and nobody can find them
	If you have parents laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh and then I go and push the camera and then I mean not just one but a bunch of parents and then and then photos of kids and they're still alive and they said "Guy" I mean they think we're so dumb that it's really getting right here It's taken down.
	Thank you.
	Did you hear Mr. Jones say photos of kids still alive?
	Yes.
	They're supposed to be dead or something like that?
	Did you hear that?
	Yes.
	We should.
	Exhibit 533. I'm sorry.
	It's a photograph of Mr. Hockley and his son.
	We can pull it up for Mr. Hockley.
	Is that a picture of you and Dylan?
	Yes.
	What was the reaction, Jay?
	Is this a picture of you and your son?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	And what year was this taking?
	I think it was the fall of 2012. Maybe it was 2011. He's on one of those thingies.
	commonly called the zip line type thing.
	Yeah.
	This is a, it was one of his French birthday parties.
	This was a photo of Dylan Will.
	Well, he's still alive.
	Yes.
	I have no further questions, Your Honor.
	We have one moment, Judge.
	Take your time, please.
	Good morning, Mr. Pettis. Mr. Pettis.
	Mr. Pappas, I didn't see you.
	Come up whenever you're ready.
	I didn't see you approach.
	You asked for a minute and I did not see you come up.
	You may inquire.
	If you may be attending my deposition for a piece of...
	But no, no, no.
	I have very few questions, sir.
	When's the first time you heard about this person in LXN?
	I believe it was 2015.
	But in 2013, you began to hear that there were folks out there saying things, false things about what happened to you if you were an actor or your son.
	The comments on that video from the memorial contain that.
	that yet that was coming yes When did you create that?
	In March of 2013, we took the decision.
	I said there was a decision you could give it to the Community Foundation or create your own.
	And to create our foundation, we got a fiscal sponsor charity.
	It's like an umbrella charity.
	And took the fund and put it there.
	Thereby, we got our 501c3.
	So that is when we created the foundation.
	No, the friend that had set up the bank account that was specifically designated, he took care of that and had it transferred into this other fund.
	How much was in that account?
	I think about $120,000.
	And you described the course of your career at IBM, correct?
	Yes.
	And ultimately you left IBM to work on Dylan's Ways of Change.
	Yes, I asked for the big leave of absence.
	I feel it was the start of 2014. And then had two years.
	Unpaid leave from IBM. I could always go back.
	And then asked for another year.
	Unpaid leave.
	Because I didn't know where we'd be going.
	We got the Wingman program started.
	I asked for another year.
	And they said, time's up, boy.
	You're fired.
	And we parted.
	I was fired.
	But that's the way you let someone go who's been on leave of absence.
	And are you now full-time employed by IBM? I am.
	What's your salary there?
	Right now, $36,000.
	And the Wingman program, you created that in 2015?
	That's about when we started, yes.
	And this is a group that empowers children and adults who participate in the program to learn about the importance of that.
	Yes, a facilitator comes in, runs a workshop or some training, and then either that organization carries on the program itself or we come back next year and we do it again.
	But placing yourself in another's shoes, understanding the world from your perspective.
	And this is one way you continue to honor the US member.
	And you are still an employee of those sites to change?
	Yes.
	And I want to go just briefly for a couple years.
	Are you saying you're not sure or you don't, you haven't heard the name Alex Jones?
	I just don't remember if I had at that point.
	There was a lot going on in those early times.
	Well, obviously you're coping with the loss of your son.
	Correct?
	Yes.
	Emerging tensions in your marriage?
	Yes.
	Changing residence?
	Yes, at some point there after the divorce, yes.
	Changing jobs?
	Yes.
	Accusing yourself to a new country?
	Yes.
	Or we can't even pronounce it right.
	Or maybe you pronounce it right.
	right I don't know I do associate it with hearing that Lenny was being attacked because that that seemed very concrete So I could attach it to that more than the date, and I know we saw things on that earlier, I just didn't latch in on that date.
	That's Lenny Posner?
	Yes.
	The parent of another child?
	Yes.
	Who is not himself in this litigation, correct?
	Correct.
	Did you continue in 2015 to hear about people denying your son's death and asserting that you were a crisis?
	Did that continue in 2015?
	In 2015, yes.
	Had it increased?
	Had it decreased?
	I don't know.
	I don't always know if we were told everything.
	So my awareness of it is that it was still happening.
	But I couldn't say to you, increase, decrease.
	My question is different.
	Here's what happens in the world as judge perspective.
	To your knowledge, as you experience the world, did your awareness of this increase remain about the same?
	My awareness was increasing because I think I was hearing more and I was also open to hearing more about it than the fog of the previous years.
	And how about during 2016, same question?
	I couldn't now say if it was increasing.
	I now have that awareness, right?
	So that awareness is established.
	I don't know that.
	But in 2016, you can't say?
	I can't say.
	Same question for 2006. Again, not sure.
	Again, it was still there.
	You got to see a few clips today.
	I think it was, well, they were in the 19 series, 19i, and I believe 19d is in data.
	You've seen other clips of Alice Towns over the years?
	Have you not?
	Not many over the years.
	I didn't go investigate.
	When is the first time you saw a clip of Mr. Towns?
	I don't know if I've seen that.
	I don't honestly do.
	That's fair.
	Yeah.
	Now, you became aware in 2014 that Wolfgang Halving was coming to the academy.
	Yes.
	That Wolfgang Halving was going to attend a school board meeting.
	Yes.
	And that you might be advised, parents, those who lost children, might be advised to stay away from the school board meeting, correct?
	Yes.
	And at that point, you understood that Halving was raising ridiculous questions.
	Objection.
	Mr. Halving.
	Objection.
	Sustained.
	At that point, why would you think it would be a good point?
	Did you take the advice to stay away from the school board meeting?
	Yes.
	Why?
	I was concerned if there would be any conflict or any problem at all.
	I didn't want to be a part of that.
	So is it fair to say that prior to this trial, are 19D and 19ID only video puts you've seen in the balance?
	No, I think we've seen a number more during these few weeks, yes.
	Before the trial, have you seen any videos?
	Before the trial date?
	I can't recall which ones I'd seen.
	- Nothing pretty good.
	- Dr. Coscott?
	- Do you understand that Mr. Jones is responsible for Mr. Halving's conduct Objection.
	Sustained.
	Prior to this trial, did you know that whether or not Mr. Halbick coordinated with InfoWars on the Sandy Hook theories?
	Prior to the trial date hearing or prior to our action.
	Yeah, didn't know anything about the relationship between Mr. Halbig and Mr. Jones?
	I didn't know in detail the relationship now.
	And you know that now?
	Yes.
	Thank you.
	No further questions.
	Anything further, Attorney Feltz?
	No, okay.
	You may step down, so you take the time and watch the scene.
	You may call your next witness.
	Your Honor, what we would like to do now is play the audio recorded deposition of former producer for The Alex Jones Show, Nico Acosta.
	All right.
	You will recall what I had.
	Said to you before you watched Mr. Jacobson's video testimony, and I'll just refresh your recollection since that was last week.
	The testimony of a witness as recorded under oath at an earlier time is what you're going to be presented with now.
	Your role as jurors in assessing testimony presented in this manner is no different than if the witness were here in court to testify, and you should pay careful attention.
	As the videotaped testimony is played, you should not make any adverse inference from the fact that the witness was not present in person to testify, but rather you should consider this testimony in the same way that you consider all the other evidence in this trial.
	All set?
	Morning, Mr. Kelsa.
	Good morning.
	Um, my name is Chris Maddy, as you know, and I represent the plaintiffs in this matter against Alice Jones, certain corporate entities, um, and others.
	And we're here today to take your deposition.
	What is your phone name?
	Jacob, I'm still going to be here.
	- What was that? - Okay, am I correct that you were employed by Free Speech Systems from 2013 through 2018? - Correct. - When were you first hired by Free Speech Systems? - It was the middle of March 2013, am I correct that you were employed by Free Speech Systems from And you said that you were working on a show, were you hired to be part of the production group for a particular show?
	Yes, for now it's been on the show.
	Can we approach the show?
	I'm sorry.
	The lips aren't moving.
	It's the video deposition.
	It's just disconcerting.
	I said no.
	It's the video.
	I misheard.
	The reason that is is because this was in the early days of Zoom deposition.
	Sure.
	Would you like me to do that?
	The reason that this is just the audio recording is because the video recording is, right, the video recording goes back and forth between the court reporter, defense lawyer, witness, so it just, it wouldn't make any sense to play the video.
	This is merely an audio.
	The court informed you that this would be a video recording.
	It is, in fact, an audio recording with a picture.
	Of the deposition, yeah.
	I'm sorry, Chris, I didn't hear that.
	I may not have been clear, but yeah, that's what it is.
	So just to clarify, when I was giving you the instructions, I referred to a video recording, and as I'm sure you all figured out, this is actually an audio recording with a picture of the deponent.
	So we just wanted to make sure that you understood that.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	thank you council can you maybe go back like 10 seconds Because I think...
	I lost that.
	Thank you.
	- So seated with the show, and the YouTube channel, so seated with the show. - Correct.
	And the show will begin at what time?
	At 11. And who would decide The
	only other person that I can think of that would maybe have that approval, how it would be about you.
	Do you know for a fact Not to put the guest, but probably you would say, hey, this is a guest that I know how I was like, and then you would have me put that guest.
	Okay.
	And if anybody else had, I guess, recommendation or suggestion, I would really run by Alice first, unless it was, if it was by Rob Daniel and Rob said, hey, Alice, like, Alice is cool with it, but it had to be crossword that would not be a guest for the books.
	Prior knowledge.
	Did Mr. Jones present himself to his audience as a news journalist?
	What would you answer, sir?
	Yes.
	And if Mr. Jones attempted to appeal to his audience by
	telling them that he would tell them the truth, whereas others would not, in your view was Mr. Howell the most frequent guest to discuss the same treatment of the young children.
	I believe so.
	Have you first come to learn the name of him?
	I think it was for the two of the other employees.
	And is it fair to say that you would not have invited Mr. Halliburton without first getting Mr. Jones's approval?
	Yes, it was my practice to never put anybody on the show that Alice had not already approved of.
	unless, as I mentioned earlier, Rob Haney made a recommendation.
	And on February 27th, Mr. Howdy was booked for 45 minutes, correct?
	Yes, it was like it.
	It was 45 minutes in your experience, an unusually long time for a first appearance.
	I would say unusually long, but it is long for a first appearance.
	Typically we would, for a new guest, vote them for a second or two, so probably maybe about 30 minutes.
	But more than that, it's And that would be the decision Mr. Jones made?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And then the next email in the chain, at least this chain, is, again, an email from you on March 13th, so about six days later, to Mr. Hallig, correct?
	Yes, I'm so-so.
	And based on this email, am I correct that you are setting up a second appearance for Mr. Howley on the Alice Jones show?
	Yeah, I think the first one was February 27th and this looks like March 13th, so yeah, I would imagine.
	Now, would you have attempted to schedule a second interview with Mr. Howie without Mr. Jones' authorization?
	No, that's not going on.
	You respond later that afternoon, and you indicate, or later that evening, sorry.
	Okay, great.
	I had you on the calendar for a full hour, and other than that, I believe we have everything we need.
	Please.
	And so this is Mr. Albee's second appearance, and how long were you going to have him on?
	According to this email, it says a full hour.
	And who would have made the decision to have him work for an hour?
	The greatest one of the guests typically was up to Alex.
	If it was a new guest, I would only schedule him for a second or two.
	If it was a liked guest, then they would be going to be scheduled for an hour.
	And so, as of Mr. Halvey's second appearance, he was being treated by Mr. Jones as a guest that Mr. Jones liked?
	Yes, I believe so.
	So, as of this second appearance, I take it as your expectation that Mr. Jones was going to want to continue to have Mr. Halvey going?
	Yes, that's correct.
	And would that have been based on the conversation you had with Mr. Jones?
	It would have been based on my perception of the discussion that they had and how engaged Alex was and how he was excited about it.
	And whenever he was very excited about a guest, he would typically say, oh, man, we've got to have that guy back on.
	Or let's put him in his team or whatever.
	It was apparent immediately it was like somebody forget it.
	And is it your recollection as you said that Mr. Jones was enthused and excited about Mr. Habe's appearances and eager to have him back on?
	Correct.
	And when this interview planned for May 13th had been scheduled by you without Mr. Jones' approval.
	No.
	Does Mr. Hallibank appear to you to be somebody who you would not rely upon?
	Personally, no.
	But at least in your own view, and again, I know you didn't have the ability to decide who was on the show, this is not somebody who you would choose to put on the air to an audience of millions, correct?
	Sure, correct.
	There's a lot of things I wouldn't do or guess I would have on if I had my own show or had power over.
	Is this somebody, as of this day, that you would trust on an issue that matters to you in your own life?
	No.
	But did you have a choice of whether to have him on?
	No.
	The calls for having him on or not were always up to you, Alice.
	Join you exhibit 38.
	This is an email from you to Alejandro Gutierrez on June 2, 2015, correct?
	And you are phoning to her Do
	you know what that refers to?
	At the time, I believe I was working with Timothy in IT to create an internal database.
	And how did you decide which tags to create for a particular subject?
	It was just based off of the coverage of the website and ballots, whatever they're Okay, so you tried to identify the subjects that Mr. Jones most frequently covered so that you would have an indie tool to identify guests whenever he would cover that subject again?
	Correct.
	And in the email that you sent Timothy, did you list the tags for the most frequently discussed subjects you wanted in the database?
	Yes, it appears so.
	Okay.
	And if you go down...
	To a floor of the document, it looks like you created a tag for the term false plan.
	Correct.
	And why did you do that?
	Because that was a common focus of the content at Inverworks.
	And is that the same reason that you also created a tag for Sandy Hook?
	False flags are, there are several instances of what they consider to be false flags that weren't exclusive to Sandy Hook, but Sandy Hook was considered also a false flag.
	I guess what I'm asking you is, you testified that the reason you created a tag for false flag was because it was a subject that was commonly covered on the Alice Jones show.
	Did you also create a tag for Sandy Hook?
	because similarly that was a subject that Mr. Jones frequently covered.
	Yes, I'm gonna ask you, Mr. Acosta, about InfoWars' use of social media.
	Were you aware when you were employed by InfoWars with free speech systems that InfoWars had a number of Facebook accounts that it controlled?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And was there any relationship between content broadcast from the Alex Jones show and the Facebook accounts?
	Yeah, we would stream the show directly on A Facebook page associated with InfoWars would air in a live stream of the Alex Jones Show?
	I think it was Facebook slash Alexander Emmerich.
	Okay.
	Alexander Emmerich Jones?
	Something like that.
	Okay.
	So a Facebook page that was associated with Alex's name.
	Yeah, we've met several Facebook pages, but that was the main one.
	Or the Prison Planet website, or for some of the newspapers, or for the night news, and they'll kind of share some content with that, and one of the countless, uh, made one that we, uh, uh, pushed out the live show on.
	Okay.
	Uh, and that would be pushed directly from your production team.
	You would just arrange for ULI streams to Facebook.
	Correct.
	Okay.
	So, let me, let me take this step by step.
	So, first and foremost, the show would air, Live, and it's entirely on the YouTube channel, correct?
	Uh, yeah.
	Okay.
	And then during the show, when the show came to the conclusion of a particular segment, that segment would be downloaded as a clip of the segment, correct?
	Mm-hmm.
	Yes?
	Yes.
	Uh, and it was, that was done so that it could be later uploaded to YouTube as a segment.
	And you indicated that Mr. Jones was responsible for creating the headline for each segment prior to it being uploaded to YouTube?
	Yeah, correct.
	And what was the process for Mr. Jones deciding what headline would be associated with each segment?
	It would take place while he was in the anger chair, and he would just put his microphone on mute, Hey, this is a good headlump for that segment I just did.
	Or if he came out of the studio for a commercial break, then we would ask him, hey, we need a headlump for that segment.
	And he would tell us, or he would not tell us.
	But since we had that long, we knew which segments needed headlines, and so we would ask him for those.
	And sometimes we wouldn't get any until after the show, and sometimes even then we would Yes.
	And that was a process you went through for Are you familiar with an
	analytics, web analytics provider called Alexa?
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	And do you know whether Alexa was ever referenced by anybody at InfoForce?
	Yes.
	And you know, as the producer of the Alex Jones Show, I think that you interacted with Alex every Can you describe the circumstances,
	Mr. Acosta, of your, um, separate from InfoWars?
	Uh, circumstances?
	Yeah, I, um, I took my left on good terms in, uh, May of 2018. I gave them a month's notice and, uh, trained, uh, one of the visitors under me,
	uh, What prompted you to decide to I couldn't handle the environment.
	I couldn't handle the job anymore if I had reached a saturation point of the toxicity.
	When you say that you couldn't handle the environment and that you've reached a saturation point of the toxicity, what was toxic about the environment that you could no longer tolerate?
	There were just too many things to describe.
	The coverage that they were doing, their lack of ethics in doing the coverage that they were doing, the effect that I can see it having out in the world.
	Mr. Costa, Mr. Wolman, I would like to ask some questions for you.
	Yes.
	Thank you very much, Mr. Costa.
	Once again, the record names, Jay Wolman, and I'm the And said something he knew was false at the time?
	Yeah, that happened not infrequently.
	Now, that concludes Mr. Acosta's testimony.
	All right.
	And can I get his full name for the record?
	I didn't get it first and last name.
	- First name, Jacob Nico Acosta.
	- Thank you.
	- May we call our next one, Ms. Your Honor?
	- May.
	- Call Nicole Hockley, please.
	- Okay.
	- Do we have water in the picture?
	Do you want to check to make sure there's water in the picture?
	- You did, okay. - What happened?
	Please remain standing if you would, and we'll square you in.
	My name is Nicole Hockley.
	That's spelled H-O-C-K-L-E-Y. And I live in Fairfield County, Connecticut.
	So I'm a broken record.
	Oh, you brought your own water, but in case you run out, Mr. Ferrara, we filled the picture.
	Thank you, Mr. Ferrara.
	Thank you.
	You may inquire.
	Thank you, Your Honor.
	Hi, Nicole.
	Hi.
	The good news is that Ian was up here this morning, so I'm not going to cover everything that Attorney Koscoff covered with Ian, but Let's just start by having you tell the jury a little bit about your own background.
	Obviously, you're Dylan and Jake's mom.
	But tell them a little bit about your upbringing and what that was like, your family life, where you went to school, those kinds of things.
	Sure.
	I grew up in Rhode Island.
	And my mom still lives in the house that we lived in in Cranston, Rhode Island from when I was about five years old.
	My parents, my father just passed a little over a year ago.
	They were incredibly good parents.
	I'm an only child, so I was it.
	And they were very strict, fairly conservative parents.
	I had to get good grades.
	I was involved in a lot of things.
	I was a Girl Scout from first grade all the way through the senior year of high school.
	I was very close to my grandparents.
	One set of grandparents living in Washington State and the other in Newport, Rhode Island, where my family's from.
	They're both Navy families, so there was a lot of Navy traditions in the family as well.
	And I was, you know, although I was alone a lot, I had a lot of great friends.
	Some of my dearest friends are people, a little tribe of girls that we've been friends since seventh grade.
	We still talk together every single day, the five of us.
	We call each other sisters, especially as an only child.
	That was important to me.
	And when I wasn't at school, I was in activities.
	I did a lot of dance classes and was then fortunate to be a teacher's assistant to the little kids, which I loved.
	I did sports, field hockey and swim team.
	I did theater.
	I was not a good actress, to be perfectly honest, but one of my high school teachers Mrs. Sipperstein really turned me on to writing, which is when I fell in love with English and writing, which I did a lot for theater.
	And it was a good life.
	We didn't go on a lot of vacations.
	My parents were really hard workers, so they were always working.
	So I would get myself to clubs and stuff after that and my sporting events after school.
	But in summers, I would go to Girl Scout camp, residential camp, which started off like in second grade.
	I went for a week, and I loved it so much that by the end of kind of my junior year of high school, I was going to summer camp the entire summer.
	Which gave me great experiences with horseback riding and canoeing and camping.
	And then I ended up being a counselor at the camp because I loved it so much before I went to college.
	You mentioned that you come from a Navy family.
	Yeah.
	Was your grandfather, was he stationed in Newport?
	Well, my grandpa, so my grandpa, my mom's dad, so his boat is still in Pearl Harbor right now.
	He died when I was six years old.
	He was a lot older.
	And my other grandpa, Grandpa Erickson, up in Washington State, he was a captain in the U.S. Navy.
	And by my early, I think he retired from the U.S. Navy when I was about 10 or 12 and settled.
	They settled over in Vancouver Island.
	Okay, in Washington.
	Yeah.
	You said that you described a lot of activities you were in.
	Have you always been a bit of a joiner?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I think I don't like having a lot of time on my hands.
	I like to be involved doing all the time, and I don't think I've ever really thought about that before, but I've always been involved in clubs, activities, you know, throughout my life, throughout college, throughout after college.
	I'm always doing something.
	You mentioned that your parents worked really hard.
	Did you start working when you were relatively young?
	Really young.
	I lied about my age to get my first job.
	I was actually 13 when I started working at kind of a private Dunkin' Donuts up the street.
	So I would get up weekends at like 5 o'clock in the morning and go up and be there to open up the store, serve the morning coffee.
	And it was just, you know...
	I wasn't allowed to go out and hang out with friends at the mall and stuff like that, because it was grades, it was clubs.
	I wasn't even allowed to date a boy until I was 16, because my parents were like, no, you're not doing any of that.
	But I could work, and that was fun engaging with customers, but, you know, learning how to make donuts and serve coffee.
	And it was good.
	When you went to Trinity College in Harvard, Yeah, in Hartford.
	You focused on writing there?
	Yeah, so I was in English and Theater, double major.
	He talks about how he met you when you went to England for part of your junior year.
	Yeah.
	And he told a story about you guys exchanging Yeah, I'd forgotten about that until he mentioned it.
	But yeah, I remember my dad was pretty angry when I came back from my six months in England, and I didn't have my dad's leather jacket anymore, but I had some other.
	He's like, what is this?
	But it was, yeah, that's how we met in the laundromat.
	You came back from England after the semester that you spent over there, and you kept in touch with Ian throughout your senior year.
	Yeah.
	Can you describe it as, you know, you kind of kept in touch, but I understand it's a little bit more than that.
	Well, I did chuckle when he said today that we weren't officially dating, because we were very officially dating my senior year of high school.
	College.
	College, pardon, college.
	He literally wrote me a letter every single day that we were apart.
	Every day.
	And we're not just talking like a card with a little sentiment and, you know, love Ian inside.
	It was like pages of handwritten notes on the Blue Air Mail paper that you used to get back then.
	Every single day.
	I, being a writer, Was not as prolific as Ian.
	I had a stereo, a tape recorder in my room, and I would voice tapes to him instead while I was getting ready for classes or stuff.
	So I probably sent him a tape every two weeks or so, but literally every single day he sent me a new letter.
	And I guess keeping in touch so closely is part of what You know, caused you to resettle full-time in England just after graduating?
	Yeah, I knew...
	I was very, very much in love with Ian.
	You know, I don't believe in love at first sight.
	I, having been through a couple of divorces with my mom, I didn't even ever necessarily want to get married.
	But with Ian, it was just so easy.
	And I saw a future with this guy and I wanted to live that future.
	You heard him say that you told your parents over Christmas and you were married by January.
	Yeah, I got married three weeks later.
	And did you have any plans like at that point about what you were going to do professionally or how you were going to make it all work?
	Your recent college graduate living in England away from your family?
	I knew we'd figure it out.
	Didn't really have a plan.
	We were living on his 10,000 pound a year job.
	As a trainee accountant, I literally took every temp job that I could find.
	I was washing dishes.
	I was doing the tea trolley at the tax office.
	I was a purchasing clerk.
	I was an office admin.
	I did the mailroom at a law firm.
	I mean, I literally, whatever job I could get, I took to help contribute.
	And I kind of fell into a role after we, shortly after we married, I was a A purchasing clerk at a turkey food production company, kind of like Frank Perdue.
	Over here does chicken, Bernard Matthews does turkey.
	So that was the English equivalent.
	And someone was on long-term leave, and I did her job and someone else's job for a while.
	And then when an entry-level marketing assistant job came up at that same firm, I applied and got it.
	And that was actually when I first even learned what marketing was.
	So after a bunch of jobs, you were able to fall into a marketing job because that's the first one that opened up in a permanent way?
	That was the first offer I was made.
	I mean, I was applying for jobs quite regularly, but my visa to permanently stay hadn't come through because we had to go through all that process.
	But it was a good job and a great opportunity.
	And you said that that's the first time you even learned about marketing.
	Yeah.
	And from that entry-level job, just describe where things went from there for you professionally.
	I was able to progress really quickly in the organization.
	I think my skill at writing really lended itself well.
	And in the five or six years I was there, by the time I left, I had done multiple television campaigns.
	I'd set up the PR function.
	I'd been managing a product line.
	I was in charge of all of the international events and exhibitions.
	It was really an excellent training ground.
	And at night, I did a two-year professional course to actually get a degree in marketing as well.
	So it was the practical and the theoretical mixed together.
	And so you moved up and started to take on these responsibilities.
	It sounds like before the time you were 30. Yeah, because we got married.
	I turned 22 a couple of weeks before we got married.
	And yeah, so that was all about my mid-20s.
	You mentioned that you weren't even sure that you were ever going to get married.
	Nope.
	Until you met Ian.
	What about kids?
	Did you see kids in your future?
	No.
	That wasn't part of what I saw.
	And...
	I mean, I didn't have anything against children.
	I just didn't really see myself as a mom because I was so focused on, I mean, I get incredibly focused on my work, like to the point that you can be talking right next to me and I won't even hear you because I'll be so focused on what I'm doing.
	And Ian and I had a lot of fun.
	You know, so leading up to the idea of kids, I was like, why change?
	What we've got.
	And being so young or at that point, it sounds kind of silly perhaps, but I just didn't know that I could make room in my heart.
	I loved Ian so wholly and so fully that I didn't think I could, that my heart could expand to have someone else in that relationship as well.
	At some point that changed.
	Yeah.
	So when I was about 32, I kind of just looked at Dean and I said...
	Yeah, I want a kid and I want it now.
	And at a biological clock, I don't know, but it was just like overwhelming the urge.
	I must have a child.
	He was already there.
	He was ready before me.
	And it took us, I think, close to six months to get pregnant with Jake.
	And then he was born when I was 33. Jake's your first?
	Yeah.
	And it only came a little under two years later?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Tell us a little bit about Dylan.
	So you had Jake.
	You wanted him to have a sibling, and you wanted another one to give.
	I wanted four at one point, but you expected to.
	Now, after Dylan, you weren't really able to have more children because of some of the health risks, right?
	Correct.
	Can you tell the jury how that, why that was?
	So I, maybe because, I'm one of those people if you start a part, if you're throwing a party, I would be there like right on time or five minutes early.
	I'm always early and my kids were like that too.
	So I didn't carry either of them to full 40 weeks.
	Jake was born two weeks early and Dylan was born six weeks early and the doctor They told me that each child would probably be progressively earlier, and that was a danger to them.
	But also, Jake wasn't just early.
	He was really, really fast.
	Like, only a few hours, and it caused a lot of damage.
	But you said Dylan was six weeks early.
	Yes.
	And did that, as a result of him being premature, did he have some health complications early on or at least needed to be monitored early on?
	He was in the special care unit at Winchester Hospital for the first few weeks.
	I stayed with him whenever I could, working with the midwives there.
	He was on a breathing tube and other tubes to support him.
	Because he was early, my milk wouldn't come in, so they were trying to help feed him as well.
	Yeah, so he was in one of those, you know, plastic-type cribs along with all the other kids for a while.
	And like the, we call that here, like the neonatal intensive care unit?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And do you remember when he was finally discharged and safe to come home?
	I do because I was allowed, before bringing him home, I was allowed to be, they had a separate room off the side, and you could spend your last night there.
	So I was in a bed, and he was in, not a cot, still like a rolling medical tray, but next to me.
	And he'd had his tubes removed by this point.
	So I could just, I could hold him.
	I could feed him.
	I could just be with him.
	And it was a special moment because I knew we were going home.
	But I just remember really clearly saying to him, you know, you...
	You got through this.
	I will never let anything happen to you.
	It was very protective that he'd survived these first few weeks and that I was going to be looking after him forever.
	Is Jake excited to have his brother on?
	Not initially.
	I remember when Jake first came to the hospital to visit me and Dylan, Ian Broaden and Jake looked everywhere except at the baby in the unit and was just like crawling on me, was all over me.
	But then Jake was a great big brother and they played a lot, a lot together.
	And Dylan just adored Jake.
	And after you brought Killing Home, did there come a point where you felt like you wanted a change in your own life, in your family life, pull back from work and that kind of thing?
	Not initially.
	That didn't happen until we moved to America, came back to America.
	I was...
	There came a point that I became dissatisfied with my work because I loved my job.
	I loved my career.
	It meant a lot to me, but it meant I was away from the boys a lot, especially When I took a job up in London, so from Eastleigh where we lived, Winchester, Southampton, up to London is a two hours door-to-door commute.
	So I would be gone before the kids woke up.
	I would come home after they were asleep.
	And I was really kind of more of a weekend mom.
	Um, and that her, you know, we were able to hire a nanny, so someone was with the boys all day long, but I felt like I was missing out on too much that I wanted to be there with them.
	Did this, did this realization kind of, um, correspond with when Dylan first started getting tested and diagnosed with autism?
	Yes, in part.
	I started to notice Dylan was developing differently around three, and I thought it was when he was around four that we first had the official diagnosis of autism, which I didn't know what autism was back then.
	And I remember Being on a train coming back from London and just crying my eyes out the whole train ride home because I thought this was going to be a huge limitation on his life.
	That he would never be capable of having a loving partner, an independent life.
	Would he even be able to finish school or ever have any sort of employment?
	And I kind of grieved for him that day.
	But then that experience and learning about autism and learning about Dylan and all the I had such a deep and intimate relationship with him from that point that I could really start to see how the experiences,
	what he experienced in life as a child with autism, How if I could get down at his level and try to experience those things in the same way, that I could then figure out ways to help him.
	And that was important to me, you know, for both of my boys to help them develop.
	And that is why I did want to, you know, I wanted to find the perfect solution of a job where I could also be with my kids all the time, especially in those early years.
	Ian mentioned that one of the things that Dylan was delayed in developing was speech.
	Yes.
	Can you tell the jury what was most helpful to Dylan in kind of learning how to speak?
	So we went to speech therapy for sure, and Dylan had this kind of lilt, this kind of sing-song voice.
	It was pretty high-pitched, and it was almost like he was singing all the time, but he wasn't.
	But he would watch movies.
	Over and over again, especially Disney and Pixar.
	Ian mentioned Shrek, Wall-E, Cars, all of those movies that he would just constantly watch.
	And we had a little portable DVD player for him, and he would sit over on the floor and watch things, but rewind and repeat scene after scene.
	You'd watch the same scene over and over and over and over again, but then he would recite them.
	So I believe part of his speech development came from reciting the movies that he saw.
	And there was one, it's an English thing called The Gruffalo.
	And he could recite the entire 30-minute movie.
	He could act out all the parts.
	I mean, I would be behind the camera videoing him and Jake playing this in the living room.
	But I think that helped him learn more about speech, how to talk.
	That's when he was like four or five years old.
	Yeah.
	And Ian discussed the decision to move back to the United States and why you settled in Sandy Hook.
	This would have been about 2011, somewhere in there?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Well, we started thinking in 2010, we moved in January 2011. Okay so just before our lunch break here why don't you tell the jury about that time from when you brought the boys to the United States um through that you know that that summer of 2012 leaving the school year what was that like for all of you?
	You know that was um it was kind of a golden time uh I think that that I was uh I had decided that I was going to take a two-year leave of absence from work Just focus on the boys and integrating into the community, let Ian really transition into his role, and I was excited about being a full-time mom.
	I was able to get them up every morning, have their breakfast, get them to school.
	I was able to get involved in the school and different activities.
	I was able to be there all the time to take, you know, them to swimming lessons or to take Dylan to his therapy or to take Jake to Cub Scouts.
	I was just able to be super present all the time.
	It was probably one of the strongest periods of my marriage with Ian as well.
	And I used to feel...
	I just had so much joy in that period of time.
	I used to just think I was just going to burst.
	I was just so happy.
	Being with my kids and having, you know, just that time with them was very precious.
	And did Dylan start to create relationships and hang out with kids and that kind of thing?
	Well, I wouldn't say he necessarily would, he wouldn't really hang out with kids.
	One of my best friends who I met at Dylan's preschool She had an autistic child as well, so, and she happened to live one street over, so we would get together after school sometimes, and I don't know how much experience everyone has with children with autism.
	A play date with two autistic children is a very special thing in itself, because they're aware of each other, but they don't play together.
	But we had neighbors who had, oh golly, Four children.
	And we'd go up the driveway to the bus stop every morning, and they would play tag.
	And Dylan had no clue what the rules were, but he just knew.
	All the kids were just all running around, and he would just be yelling out, who's the tagger?
	Who's the tagger?
	And the kids were great with him, you know, because they would never tease him.
	They would never, like, keep running.
	They would allow themselves to be caught if he was the tagger, or even if he wasn't the tagger.
	It was just a really...
	Great.
	They were his wingmen.
	They included him and supported him all the time, and he just loved being around kids.
	He didn't always know the rules or how to play, but the fact that they included him, he would just be beaming the whole time.
	If we can.
	321 is another photo.
	I know, but I believe there's no objection.
	So can we just pull up 321?
	So this is you guys.
	With Dylan?
	That's Jake.
	That's Jake.
	Did you see, were you here when Erica Laffrey testified and was showing some photos from her mom's Twitter page?
	Yes.
	Let's pull up Exhibit 447. Full Exhibit?
	Yes, Your Honor.
	Yes, Your Honor.
	Agreed.
	And that's Dawn, the principal, as the book fairy, right?
	Yes.
	Do you see Don here?
	Yes.
	Where's he?
	He is sitting two kids next to Don.
	He's got his blue hoodie on, his winter jacket.
	And what was Don's first reaction when he saw his principal dressed up as a book fairy?
	It scared him because Don, first of all, he'd never seen her in this full dress and crown and She had these gigantic false eyelashes on at the time.
	They were like little glitter balls at the end.
	And that freaked him out.
	He could not handle that.
	But then Don was like, you know, Dylan, it's me, it's me.
	And he was fine, but he kept his distance.
	But obviously, by the time this photo was taken, he obviously had gotten comfortable with her.
	And I think we have a picture of Dawn in full Book Ferry Regalia.
	This is Exhibit 538. There's no objection to this, Your Honor.
	It's a new exhibit.
	Correct.
	No objection, Judge.
	So what?
	And this is Dawn Lafferty, expounding as the Book Fairy.
	Yes.
	This would be a fine time to take our lunch break.
	Sorry, if you...
	I think so.
	All right, so you will continue, of course, to obey your rules of juror conduct.
	It looks like a nice day out there for those of you who are going to get some fresh air.
	Ron will collect your notepads, and we will be back right at 2 p.m.
	to continue.
	So we'll take a recess.
	All right.
	This is a quick moment of session.
	Good afternoon, Your Honor.
	Good afternoon.
	Good.
	All right, so, Council, I had the opportunity to review what we said on Friday about Mr. Jones' testimony.
	Bye.
	Remember from our earlier discussion and what I said was along the lines of I told you that the defense exercised I told them that the defense exercised its right not to cross-examine Mr. Jones, and then I reported the defense's expectation that they would call Mr. Jones at the end of next week, which would be this week.
	So, based on that, do you want to talk to each other and see if you agree that something should be said? - The Attorney Manning referred to me, I'll ask for a direct verdict.
	We estimated that Mr. Jones would testify at the end of this week, last week, but we now expect that the expectation is he will return and stand next week. - I mean, I...
	I don't know that it's necessary, Judge.
	I was asked to say it in the first place, which I did, and it was really agreed upon language.
	That's what they expect.
	If we're going to change course, I just think in fairness to our jury that we just mentioned the scheduling issue.
	I mean, we could also mention, I think we're also ahead of, we still remain ahead of schedule.
	I can say that as well if you'd like, that we still remain ahead of schedule in the case.
	And I will tell you with respect to Mr. Jones's testimony that the defense expects to call him next week.
	Would it make sense to wait until we know whether we're going to do the charge conference Thursday afternoon?
	Yeah, I'll talk to you on a sidebar on that.
	I wasn't going to interrupt the witnesses testimony with this.
	I was thinking after this witnesses testimony.
	I'll see you on a sideboard, though, if you don't mind.
	So who do you have scheduled for version?
	We have plaintiffs.
	We have...
	Our schedule is fluid, but we have three, potentially four plaintiffs, but we think...
	I don't know, Judge, but we think that even if we have to take some court time to do the charge conference, it would be better because we're not going to fully finish until Tuesday morning.
	- Okay.
	- And most times it looks like it's really good.
	So I wanted to get it to you, not to him, but to my work done.
	- Okay, we appreciate it.
	- What I really wanted to do was toss to each other first, and give me all your agreed upon each other first.
	I hope we can agree on a lot, because there's some complications.
	- Right.
	- Some of the . - That's great.
	- Certain .
	But just .
	- Okay.
	- Okay.
	- So we're gonna get a lot of .
	- Oh, that's fine. - And then we won't do it over one, - Sure.
	- And I wasn't gonna do that if you have a solid testimony in the afternoon, but we don't . - I think I'm heading north, so I will do anything to be able to leave earlier myself.
	Okay, so why don't we do this?
	Because it's really, it's very helpful to know that we may have a draft charge from you, Judge.
	We will, definitely.
	Good.
	And we'll have a better idea as to how many issues there are.
	And Judge, will that include a draft jury interrogatory?
	Okay, just ask.
	Yeah, I'm not going to get to this.
	I'll work on that next.
	So, Judge, are you going to be back in town on Monday, or are you planning on taking it on Monday?
	Monday, both.
	I have an argument elsewhere.
	So maybe, why don't we revisit this again once we get the charge, and I've got to talk to...
	Sounds good.
	And end at 2?
	No objection.
	You can go get the jury.
	It's like I'm not, I was never a great skier, but I had a busy life to ski.
	So when I was born, I was a wax rock.
	I was that girl.
	Now, I just want to go skiing.
	We can't even make it to lunch.
	We have lunch at 11.
	Is it time for hot cocoa yet?
	I know.
	So I'm glad that we agreed on something.
	Yeah.
	Let me just re-go with it.
	So I'll tell when now.
	When do you wait till tomorrow?
	I'd like to talk to Alan to run this by.
	Just make sure I'm not over committing us.
	Can we just revisit this tomorrow morning when I just have gone over everything?
	I just don't want to make a promise that it gets us in trouble.
	I know.
	You guys are leaving.
	But we may want to stay and continue prison.
	Good luck.
	Thank you.
	Welcome back.
	Hope everybody had a nice lunch break.
	Hope you got some fresh air.
	Council will stipulate that the entire panel has returned?
	Yes.
	Yes, Your Honor.
	Please be seated, everyone, and just give me one moment to reorganize myself and get situated as well.
	And just as a reminder, you folks have been really great with the breaks.
	No one's raised their hand at any time for an additional bathroom break, but at any time if anyone needs a quick bathroom break, we can always take a two or three minute break.
	You just have to raise your hand.
	I won't even mention who you are.
	I'll just take a break.
	so that offer stands throughout your child.
	You may resume the stand.
	Good afternoon.
	Just again, watch your step.
	Whenever you're ready, Council.
	Thank you, Your Honor.
	Welcome back, Nicole.
	When we left, we had just started talking about the fall of 2012, and I intended to bring up picture 322, and I brought up 321 by accident.
	I apologize for that.
	If I could bring up 322 now, I believe this is in full deferral.
	Yes, it is.
	Yes.
	OK.
	Agreed.
	So who's this young man?
	That is Dylan, that's Dee.
	And do you know when this may have been taken?
	It was, golly, I think it was earlier that spring or summer, and it's in the little garden area that's next to what was the old police station in Newtown.
	Okay.
	And who was Dylan's teacher in the fall of 2012?
	2012, his teacher was Ms. Soto, Vicki.
	And I take it you had a chance to meet and spend time with Vicki?
	Yeah, a little bit.
	You know, at the first parent-teacher conference when y'all sit down and try to cram yourself into the little first grade seats and desks and got to meet Ms. Soto then and she talked about what our kids could expect that year.
	And she's just a very lovely, warm, beautiful, beautiful woman, but also just very warm and engaging.
	And what about the other folks at the school, you know, who were providing support for Dillon?
	Who was he working with?
	So that year for first grade, he was working with Mrs. Ann Marie Murphy, who was his special education assistant.
	That would be with him in the classroom to help him with his tasks and through any challenges.
	So, tell the jury what was going on in Dylan's life that fall leading up to December.
	What was happening with him developmentally?
	You mentioned that he would have a play date with his friend every now and again, but Yeah.
	So the fall of 2012, he was doing pretty well developmentally.
	His speech was coming on.
	You know, it was still delayed, but it was definitely coming on.
	His handwriting...
	Which Mrs. Murphy really worked hard with him on, but it was atrocious.
	You know, it would be a gigantic scrawl across a piece of paper.
	Whenever they did art, he would just take purple markers and draw gigantic purple dots so that he came home every single day from school.
	But we were making a lot of progress on other things as well.
	He had very specific routines around food and what he would eat and what he would not eat.
	And we were working on trying to expand that, like get, you know, something besides just fish sticks and garlic bread into his life.
	You know, some carrots.
	Red Delicious Apples were his favorite.
	Had to be Red Delicious Apples.
	His six squares of Hershey's chocolate after every single lunch.
	But we were working on expanding his range of foods, and we were working with a lot of auditory stuff.
	He would have headphones that he would listen to different tracks for that his therapist had given him.
	He didn't realize he was different from everyone else.
	You know, he was a very happy boy, and one of the things that I truly loved the most, that I think Ian and I were blessed with, is that he really loved cuddles, like really deep, deep cuddles.
	He was always close.
	And for me, even though he was six, he still liked to be carried and he would just kind of cling on to me like a koala bear kind of thing.
	But I loved that because he was always wanting to sit right next to you or be right up against you and be pressing up against.
	But he was coming on and he played You know, kickball at Jake's birthday party.
	Again, had no idea what he was doing.
	The kids would just say, run, and he would run.
	He would attend the Cub Scout meetings with Jake, and he would just sit there with me and some of the other younger siblings of the Scouts.
	And he was a happy little boy, you know, as six-year-olds should be.
	You said you got six squares of Hershey chocolate for dessert every meal?
	Yes.
	Every meal.
	Not breakfast.
	Just lunch and dinner.
	But it had to be six squares.
	That was his treat.
	He wasn't really into cookies or cakes.
	I still have a very fond memory of one of his birthdays, me making him a cake that he cried when he first tasted it.
	And I'm not a great cook, but it wasn't that bad.
	But he, you know, that just wasn't his thing.
	It had to be Hershey's chocolate bars of six squares.
	Because Dylan was so particular about his food, I understand that you all had started working with him on vitamins.
	Yes, vitamins.
	So one of the things his doctor said, because he was so restricted in what he would eat, that a vitamin supplement might be a good idea to ensure that he was getting all the nutrients that he needed.
	And him being six, I figured it would be impossible to get him to swallow a pill.
	And I don't think that there were necessarily a lot of chewable aspirins at that point, or I wasn't aware of them.
	So I've got liquid.
	Vitamins.
	And November into December, we were trying to get him to drink, I think it was like five mil maybe, out of one of those little paper cups of his vitamins every morning.
	And, you know, I tried every flavor under the sun and he really didn't like it.
	But he...
	He wanted to make me happy so he would keep trying to finish the vitamins and he never did until until Friday 1214 that was the first day he ever finished all the vitamins and he was so proud of himself because he knew that that's what I wanted for him.
	That was the morning before you got on the bus that day?
	Yes.
	That morning, when you learned that something when you learned that something was happening at the school, you like all the other things went to the area, right?
	Yeah.
	You waited in the firehouse with the other families?
	I was in the firehouse.
	Ian mentioned, I think, that maybe that Wednesday, the Wednesday after, was when you had service for dealing.
	Yeah, Wednesday the 19th at one of the local funeral homes.
	He was in his casket by that point.
	We thought it was just going to be family and friends.
	I apologize.
	If you could just try it.
	Yes, thank you.
	This is hard.
	Yes, we have the funeral on Wednesday the 19th.
	You didn't, particularly at that time, you didn't know who Alex Jones was.
	On the 19th of December?
	No.
	You weren't aware of that on that day, the day of the service for Dillon.
	Mr. Jones put out a statement accusing Robbie Parker of having been given a card and being told what to say.
	I wasn't aware of that on the 19th of December.
	I became aware of that in January.
	After the services for Dylan, what did you and Ian and Jake do to...
	How did you spend those next few weeks?
	We got out of town.
	It was very overwhelming.
	Everything was happening, and there were so many people wanting to help, and it was overwhelming me.
	And, you know, we lived kitty-corner across the street from the shooter.
	We had all our, you know, family from England, family from across the country with us in our little rental house.
	It was too much and then, you know, it was...
	Four days after the shooting was my birthday, and then you had the funeral and the memorial, and then Christmas, and trying to pretend that something was normal when none of us had any idea what normal was.
	It was just too much.
	So the three of us, Jake and Ian and I, we left, and right after Christmas, I think the day after Christmas, We flew to California and just thought, you know, let's try to do something, just the three of us, where we're away from Newtown, we're away from all the noise, and can just focus on us.
	And in retrospect, you know, you make stupid decisions.
	You know, you don't go to the happiest place on earth when you can't stop crime.
	So it was a hard, a hard trip.
	But we were away for a little while and then came back shortly before New Year's, if I recall correctly.
	You were trying to make things more for Jake.
	For Jake.
	And when you came back in January, You didn't want to go back to the house?
	No.
	So this is what Ian was talking about.
	Some friends who are out of town for the winter let you use their house.
	Yeah, it was a friend of a friend.
	They were snowboarding.
	They were retired and living in Florida during the winter, so their house was empty, and they allowed us to borrow it.
	And when you came back in January, is this when you first started to pick up on these lies that were circulating about the shooting and about you and Yeah, I remember that house then, I call it the transition house.
	I remember sitting, I had my computer set up on the dining room table, And I certainly wasn't looking for lies about Sandy Hook.
	I was looking for information.
	It was the first time I had gone online and started looking.
	I wanted to learn about the other families.
	I wanted to learn about what was going on.
	And instead, I found the comments section of a lot of articles and started to see Horrible things being said.
	The first one that I clearly remember is our comments about Robbie Parker and his video statement.
	I saw his video.
	I never saw the full statement for a long time, but I saw those first few seconds and all the horrible things that people were saying about Robbie and crisis actors and then started to see the same things levied at Ian.
	From our memorial video, and then just broadly that the whole thing was a hoax and that we were all actors.
	And you just start going down the rabbit hole on comments, and this would keep me up at night, just reading these things and responding to them.
	So you would see comments with some of the news coverage around Sandy Hook and you would respond to these people who were posting this?
	Yeah, because, I mean, what they were saying was so ridiculous, you know, that this was all a hoax, that Dylan didn't exist, that none of this had happened.
	I couldn't understand it.
	I was incredulous that anyone would even think, what sane person, what reasonable person would ever think that this was a hoax?
	So I would respond under my own name and say, no, my son was killed there.
	This really happened.
	My surviving son was there that day too.
	I would respond and that was the wrong thing to do.
	Did you know that in early January, Alex Jones had featured this lie about there being crisis actors involved.
	I had not been aware of, you know, I probably came across Alex Jones before I knew who Alex Jones was.
	Because I'd lived in England for 18 years.
	I wasn't aware of his personality.
	I wasn't aware of a lot of American culture elements like that.
	So if I came across him at all, it would have been in clips, it would have been in reference, but he wouldn't have popped out as the instigator of a lot of this, but I felt the impact of what he was doing from his followers.
	Did there come a point where the comments that you were reading Yes.
	And did there come a point when they escalated in what you viewed as their seriousness?
	Yes.
	And I hid a lot of this from Ian.
	It was very targeted comments.
	There were direct messages.
	Emails, phone calls to my friends looking for me.
	I received mail at the house, which I would tend to get to before Ian would get home from work.
	Mail, let's see, I got...
	I got sent pictures of dead kids because I was told that as a crisis actor, I didn't really know what a dead kid looked like, so this is what it should look like.
	I got mail saying that, you know, F Dylan and F you.
	We're going to extend an RIP greeting to you.
	And in parentheses, RIP was rotten pieces.
	I got a piece of mail telling me to slit my wrists before they did it for me.
	And a lot of other just hoax or Crisis actress.
	Your son never lived.
	Your son never died.
	I got mail about the fact that I put on weight after 12-14, and that was because I was Guilty, so I was eating myself to get rid of my guilt.
	I was living rich off of payouts for being a crisis actress, and that's why I put on weight.
	There were some absurd ones too, but it was very scary.
	This mail was coming to your residence.
	The new house we bought after the transition house.
	So in March?
	There was a phone call.
	Someone was looking for me in March of 2013 and because We didn't have a landline at that point because we weren't in the rental anymore.
	They had gotten a copy of the Sandy Hook School student directory and were calling parents in Jake's classroom to try to get my contact details.
	Were you here for Bill Aldenberg's testimony?
	Yes.
	Do you recall his testimony that beginning in January He was supervising a woman named Ashley Hall?
	Yes.
	And that for the next 18 months while Ashley Hall was in that job, all she did was respond to complaints of threats and harassment against the families?
	Yes.
	Do you know Ashley Hall?
	I think I only met her once, but I certainly corresponded with her a lot.
	Can we bring up for Nicole, please, and counsel Exhibit 531, please.
	I'm sorry, sir?
	531. Do you have that in front of you, Nicole?
	Yes.
	Is 531 correspondence between you and Ashley Hall concerning The issue you were just describing was somebody was going through the San Diego School directory to try and get a hold of you?
	Yes.
	Did Ms. Hall respond to you?
	She did.
	If we can also pick, um, pull up 530 just for Nicole, counsel in the court, please.
	This is a subsequent email exchange between you and Ms. Hall the following month in April?
	Correct.
	In which she's informing you that the individual who you complained about had been arrested, correct?
	Yes.
	I'd offer both 531 and 530. I think I've laid the foundation.
	We're not offering just for the truth, but to show the way in which Ms. Hockley and the FBI were dealing with complaints directed at her.
	All right, I'll overrule the objection.
	So let's pull up 531, please, first, and we'll pull up the bottom portion, the email from Nicole to Ms. Hall.
	No, no, I'm sorry.
	That's my friend.
	Yeah, that one.
	Thank you.
	Okay.
	So this is, you see this email, Nicole, from you to Ms. Hall?
	Yes.
	Ms. Hall was the victim specialist for the FBI in Connecticut.
	Yes.
	And did you understand that to the extent you were having any, you or your family were having any Threatening or concerning interactions with people who are claiming that you are an actress or that San Diego was a hoax, that you could report that to her?
	Yes.
	And here, this is just three, three and a half months after your son's death?
	Yes.
	And you advise Ms. Hall that your friend had been telephoned by somebody.
	And you just described for the jury how your phone had been disconnected and this person was looking for some alternative way to get a hold of you.
	Correct.
	You said that you had to send an email to the rest of Jake's classmates' parents to warn them and ask them not to engage in conversation with this man, but send you details so that you can forward them to the FBI. Correct.
	If you go down, you can see yesterday this gentleman had emailed you twice via Dylan's Fund website.
	That's the website that Ian had described as being set up to basically be the start of Dylan's Wings for Change.
	Yes?
	You've Googled him and he's a hoaxer.
	He also makes very disturbing tweets suggesting people go kill themselves, get cancer, or be shot.
	Right?
	Yes.
	And let's go up to the top here to Ms. Hall's response.
	For some reason, this guy's name rings a bell.
	I will certainly pass this along to the agents and see if there's anything they can do.
	I recently met with Facebook and will also forward this information to them as well.
	You can take that down.
	Nicole, beginning in 2013 and continuing onward, was this the type of thing that you would be dealing with and in which you would try to get assistance from the FBI? Yes.
	The harassment, the comments, the threats continued to escalate throughout 2013 and 2014 in particular.
	And before we get to that, Nicole, let me just, because I do want to bring up the jury since we mentioned it, 5.30.
	Because on this particular occasion, the gentleman you reported on April 11th, if you go to the bottom, Ms. Hall advises you that you've been arrested on harassment and stalking.
	Yes?
	Yes.
	And after you thank her, she says, absolutely.
	Let's hope this starts a moment, right?
	Yes.
	You understood that to mean that she was hoping that through some of this action, it could start to stem this tide of attacks against you and the other families, correct?
	That's how I understood it.
	But they didn't stop, did they?
	No, they did not stop.
	Did there come a point where as a result of the threatening communications you were receiving, you started to become concerned for your own life?
	Yes.
	Why?
	Because they could be anywhere.
	And I had no way to No real means to protect myself, and I was very scared that one of them would go from just sending mail or comments to actually acting out on things that they said they were going to do.
	Did you do anything to Trying to make sure that if this did happen, that your son, Jay, would be taken care of.
	Yeah, I took out a really large life insurance policy on me so that if they got to me, he'd be okay.
	Financially, okay.
	Are you still paying that premium for that policy?
	I'm still paying that premium.
	You think you took this out in 2013?
	I took it out in 2013. During this,
	let's say, two-year period, 2013 into 2015, In addition to grieving for Dylan and dealing with all of this, you and Ian started to drift apart?
	Yeah.
	We just grieved very differently, and we just lost the ability to communicate with each other.
	You mentioned earlier that one of the things that you had come across in January was a claim that, like Robbie, Ian was an actor because he had been caught smiling at his son's memorial.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	And what did you observe of Ian's reaction to that allegation against him?
	I'm not sure we ever really talked about it.
	I mean, I took the video down from YouTube.
	You know, I started off by just deleting the comments whenever they came up, and then there were just too many, so I took it down.
	I don't think we ever really talked about this because I was trying to protect him from it.
	When you and Ian separated and divorced, you stayed in the home that you had purchased in March of 2013, but eventually you moved to a new home?
	Yes.
	When would that have been?
	I moved in around March of 2017. I lived in the house for one more year after our divorce was finalized.
	And even through the whole divorce and even now, you and Ian are, you co-parent Jake and you're both very involved in his life.
	Oh my gosh, yeah.
	There's been, I mean, we don't dislike each other.
	We just couldn't find our way back.
	And he's still someone that I care for.
	He's my friend.
	And we both prioritize Jake.
	There's been too much pain.
	Why on earth would we ever do anything to hurt Jake?
	When you moved into this new house, you were in Vialana and Jake was with you.
	Did you take any measures to ensure that the home was secure and safe and from people who might be after you?
	Yes.
	Especially now as a single mom, I purposefully bought a house that is in a very quiet cul-de-sac that you don't come in or out of it unless you live there.
	I bought a house that is purposefully exposed, so you can't get near my house without someone else in the neighborhood seeing you from any angle.
	I have security lights throughout the whole exterior of the house.
	I have a security system.
	Even so, I never leave the car unlocked in the driveway, or even if I'm just returning the grocery cart, I lock the door.
	The house is very secure, and I can monitor anything that enters or exits it.
	Are you aware, as you go through life now, The risk that you face just by being out in the world, how does that affect you?
	What do you do?
	It affects me more than I let show most of the time because it is a constant fear.
	I can't stop living, so I still have to go out and do things and go to events and help spread my work, but I can't...
	I'm always conscious of who's around me.
	I mean, I've even had moments of anxiety in this courtroom if there are people sitting behind me that I don't know.
	It's a constant fear of Checking the back seat before I get into the car, even though it's been locked.
	If a car has been behind me for too long, if I'm driving home and I know that I live in a secluded neighborhood, I'll call my boyfriend and be on the phone with him while I just circle the blocks until the person either leaves, because I'm that afraid that they're around all the time, but I take precautions that I can But I can't stop.
	I'm not going to just seclude myself in my home and never live, but I have to be ultra-aware at all times.
	Tell the jury what you keep next to your bedside.
	I have weapons in my bedroom.
	I have a baseball bat.
	I have several knives and a can of mace.
	You'd never think to have any of that before all these lies started, would you?
	No, but there are definitely times that I have taken that baseball bat to bed with me because a couple of weeks ago there was a power outage.
	And my first thought is someone's cut the line.
	And let's just take a look at what's still going on.
	This is Exhibit 532, Your Honor, for ID. Do you have it in front of you, Nicole?
	Not yet.
	Yes, yes.
	Can you just identify that?
	That was a message sent to me through Facebook Messenger.
	When?
	The first one was August 23rd, then August 24th, 28th, and September 6th.
	Of this year?
	Yes.
	September 6th, the week before this trial started?
	Correct.
	And Nicole, I take it that this is just one example of the type of stuff you receive, what, on a daily, weekly basis?
	In terms of direct messages to me, they're not daily anymore, but there is not a day that goes by that there isn't a comment made about Sandy Hook hoax and crisis actors.
	And here, the first question you're asked here is, are you related to the Sandy Hook Promise page, right?
	Yeah.
	We're going to talk about Sandy Hook Promise in a minute.
	And then if it goes It's a Sandy Hoax, right?
	Yes.
	And it's showing all of you, or a number of you, deplaning from Air Force One, is that right?
	Yes.
	And you're referred to as an actor, yes?
	Yes.
	Neil Tessaline lost his son Jesse, and he's referred to as a felon, correct?
	Yes, yes.
	Bill Sherlack, whose wife Mary was killed, referred to there as a fraud, correct?
	Yes.
	The President of the United States referred to as a CIA Muppet, yes?
	Yes.
	David Wheeler referred to as a movie actor?
	Yes.
	And if we go down, it says, is that really you?
	And then in September it says, seriously, how do you sleep at night?
	Yes.
	And I don't know what the YouTube video is because I never clicked on the link.
	And, Nicole, you mentioned that one of the things that you're committed to doing is continuing your work.
	What's your work?
	I lead an organization called Sandy Hook Promise.
	And what is Sandy Hook Promise?
	Sandy Hook Promise is a national nonprofit, completely nonpartisan, that's focused on educating kids how to recognize when someone might be in crisis and need help and teach them to be an upstander and intervene before something bad happens.
	So the idea is you want kids who are around other kids to be able to tell when one of those other kids might be in crisis?
	Correct.
	Because you want to be able to equip those children with the tools to intervene if something wrong is happening.
	Yes.
	At the one end, we teach them how to reach out to someone who's alone and create connection and inclusion.
	And at the other end, when someone is threatening self-harm or harm to someone else, we teach them how to say something and get help for that person.
	And as part of saying your Promise's work, is there also a focus on keeping children safe in other ways?
	It's all focused on kids and keeping them safe.
	So it's, you know, it's safety from bullying through substance abuse, dating violence, all the way to suicide and homicide.
	And the last thing I want to talk to you about is your son, Jake.
	How old is Jake now?
	He's 18 now.
	And can you share with the jury the concerns you have for him in connection with these lies that have now been going on for close to 10 years?
	I've tried to In the same way I hid a lot from Ian, I tried to, as a mom would, not show my son these things.
	He's very tech savvy, but he never talked about it.
	I didn't bring it up.
	And I overheard him in his room in 2017. And that's when I first became aware that he was aware of Jones and his followers, because he mentioned him by name.
	And he was upset talking to his friend.
	And we've had conversations about that since.
	He doesn't understand why people would think such a thing.
	Because he was there.
	I mean, Dylan was his brother, and he was there that day.
	Jake was there.
	He heard everything.
	He saw things.
	That's part of his lived experience.
	And we talked a lot about how to react if one of these people ever approached him in real life, because I get really scared about that.
	That as a young man, he won't know the right choice to make if he's approached a matinee, because what that might do to him in terms of making him angry, that someone's questioning his own life, questioning the life and death of his brother, his parents.
	And, you know, he tries to play the tough guy.
	But he's not tough, he's 18. And that is my biggest fear, is that This is my life for the rest of my life.
	I know my son lived.
	I know what happened that day.
	I will figure that out.
	But this is the rest of his life, too.
	And I don't know if he knows how to cope with that.
	And I don't know if you can hurt me anymore, but I am terrified that someone will hurt my son.
	Because they will leave these a fraud too.
	Yes.
	Thank you, Your Honor.
	Examination Attorney Pagas.
	Thank you, Judge.
	I think I observed that position.
	You were on the phone for it.
	I just had a very good question.
	Do you know Eric Sandstrom?
	I have no idea who he is.
	He sent me a Facebook message.
	Yes.
	You mentioned the life insurance premium.
	What are the premiums?
	At the moment, it's $126 a month.
	Now, you were shown an exhibit after your communication with Ashley Hall about a person, man or woman, arrested for harassment or stalking.
	Do you know it was a man or a woman?
	It was a man.
	Did you ever attend a court for sale?
	proceeding to give your input into what you become No, I just gave it to Ashley Was anyone else to your knowledge ever arrested for harassing or stalking you?
	For harassing or stalking me?
	Not that I'm aware of.
	not face-to-face correct I just haven't decided to do that yet I didn't even know what gun violence was before then.
	I lived in England 18 years.
	You don't have guns there.
	You wrote a piece in 2021.
	I was apathetic about gun violence, so my six-year-old son was killed.
	Correct.
	At any point prior to attending trial, did you become aware of whether Alex Trump had an issue towards guns or the second amendment?
	The truth is I probably had seen stuff over the years, but I never really linked it until this trial, until your opening statement.
	So you never thought, for example, the work of Sandy Hook promises might be Absolutely not, in no way.
	It's my full-time job.
	Since March 2013. And have you offered testimony to legislative bodies on the topic of gun violence?
	I have written testimony around school safety, mental health, and gun violence prevention.
	And you became aware of Mr. Jones, I believe, in January 2013?
	No, I became aware of the claims against Robbie Parker in January 2013. But not of Mr. Jones?
	Not as I could name him, no.
	When do you first think you became aware that there was a person named Alex Jones that you became?
	Around 2014 or 15. Okay.
	And not at all during 13?
	He would have just been another name.
	I had no idea who he was.
	So you couldn't associate him in particular with him in 2000?
	Not at that time.
	In 14, you became aware that he was a person who was referring to you as a crisis actor?
	Correct.
	And denying him your son lived?
	Yes.
	And that was defavorable?
	Yes.
	And devastating him?
	To think that anyone would think that Dylan didn't live is devastating.
	Correct.
	Yes.
	I have theories, but I don't know.
	I'll allow it.
	I tried to explain to Jake, when he asked why would people think this, my answer to him was that it's too horrific for people to consider the idea of children being killed.
	That even in movies or other mass culture, children are taboo.
	You don't commit violence against children.
	And I said to him, I think that there's just people that can't get their heads around the fact that this genuinely happened.
	Is Alex Jones one of those people in your view?
	No, I think...
	I don't think he thinks necessarily about what he's saying and how it harms people when he does it.
	Yes, I've been here every day.
	Yes.
	Including an exhibit of Alex saying that on the very day of the shooting, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming for our guns.
	Yes.
	And do you associate that issue sitting here today with his head and appointing for mobile guns and gun safety?
	The first time I saw that video was in this courtroom.
	That's not my question.
	Do you associate that as you sit here today with his head of view about guns and gun safety?
	I believe that he is sharing what he thinks he should be sharing on his show about his view on guns and gun safety for his base.
	I repeat the question.
	Do you believe as you sit here today that he has a point of view about guns and gun safety?
	I don't know his personal view.
	I only know what he says.
	So I don't know.
	I don't know if he's giving a script or his own personal views.
	In either case, is it very safe that he's associated with you as antithetical to yours?
	Not antithetical, no.
	I mean, only try to understand your question.
	Do I believe they're coming, they're coming, they're coming?
	No.
	So you were aware of Mr. Jones in 2014 and did he help deeply hurtful?
	Well, he was expressing that deeply hurtful point of view to you, correct?
	He was saying lies, yes.
	And did he say lies?
	Yes.
	Not sure about 16. 17, I think he tried to retract and back off, but it was saying he was sorry while doubling down on things don't look right.
	I watched his interview with Megyn Kelly.
	No, I already had a view on Mr. Jones.
	So he tried to offer an apology but doubled down in the course of the interview.
	Is that what you're saying?
	In my opinion, yes.
	Have you ever reached out to...
	No.
	No.
	Haven't looked.
	I don't know.
	Whenever he says Sandy Hook parents, he's referring to me as well.
	That is my absolute opinion.
	Thanks.
	Sorry, Natty, anything for you?
	Nothing I'm doing.
	All right, you may step down, just watch your step and take your time.
	Thank you.
	We just have a couple minutes to, maybe just 30 seconds to kind of figure out what's next.
	Okay, thanks.
	We do have a deposition at play.
	May we have just a quick sidebar?
	Absolutely.
	Thank you.
	I beg your pardon?
	Oh, yeah, it's all right.
	I couldn't remember.
	Okay, thank you.
	Yes.
	You had planned to give an instruction on depositions to disregard any objections.
	I didn't hear it in the last one.
	my attention may have left there were no objections in that one you're right I think there may be in this one, but I'm not positive.
	It doesn't hurt to just remind him.
	Yeah, I didn't hear it, and I mentioned it to Attorney Maddie.
	I remember that one, but not yet.
	I think after this, I'm going to ask for a break, and then we've got one more plaintiff, and then that will take us to the end of the day.
	Right, right, right, but after this video is what I'm saying.
	Okay. - And this is video deposition?
	This is video deposition time.
	Alright, so again, if I may, you're going to hear again the testimony of a witness recorded under oath at an earlier time.
	And again, your role as jurors in assessing testimony presented in this manner is no different than if the witness were here in court to testify.
	And you should pay careful attention as the videotaped testimony is played.
	You should not make any adverse inference from the fact that the witness was not present in person to testify, but rather you should consider this testimony in the same way that you consider all of the other evidence in this trial.
	Finally, should there be any objections, you should disregard any objection that you hear, which means that you may consider the answer and all the testimony.
	Thank you, Your Honor.
	And at this time, please present the testimony that Video recorded deposition of Joshua Owens.
	Today's date, October 15th, 2021. Yes, I started May of 2013 and I quit April of 2013. I
	did.
	Why did you take that job?
	Because I wanted to work for InfoWars and Alex Jones.
	Did you believe at that point that InfoWars and Alex Jones were trustworthy?
	I did.
	Did your role ever change entry systems?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Can I have a sidebar?
	We don't have a transcript.
	These are designations, and so they're, you know, excerpts of the transcript.
	We're going to play the entire deposition, obviously, so we don't have a transcript prepared for this.
	It's like, what's the story with the audio?
	It's just Zoom.
	It's just Zoom.
	That's what it is.
	They weren't different.
	It's just kind of weird.
	What we can do is play it and prepare a deposition transcript just for this to present to them.
	No objection.
	OK, cool.
	So long as time-- Yeah.
	So long as time they listen to one of his characters, they're not going to listen to one of his characters.
	Maybe don't tell them until after they've listened.
	I stopped listening and wait to read and not listen to them.
	But we'll also have a turn of the volume a little bit.
	How much time is?
	I think it's about 20 minutes.
	It's going to be about 20 minutes.
	This is what happens when somebody else does the depositions.
	Who did this one?
	Who did this one?
	Was it there?
	Let's just see.
	it it just takes any kind of work to hear it yes i've asked council to start the um video from the start So that we can listen carefully.
	I recognize that it might be a little difficult to hear some of it, but you just do the best you can.
	This is the video recording deposition of Joshua Owens.
	Today's date, October 15th, 2021. Would you mind stating for us the dates that you were employed with Free Speech Systems?
	Yes, I started May of 2013, and I quit April of 2017.
	And you received a team that you were also a job of video editor?
	Correct.
	And did you change that job?
	I did.
	Why did you change that job?
	Because I wanted to work for InfoWars and Alchemy.
	Did you believe at that point that InfoWars and Alchemy jobs were trustworthy?
	I did.
	Did your role ever change in three systems?
	My responsibilities grew, but on paper, I am not aware of any specific role change as far as what my title would have been.
	there So, as far as you're aware, your title would be the same?
	Yes, as far as I'm aware.
	But how did your responsibilities change?
	Well, when I was retired, I was brought on to And then, over time, I started being sent out on the road.
	Sometimes with Alex Jones, but mostly with the reporters that work there.
	But based on your statements that were made on the air, you have understood that InfoWars was conveying to its audience that it was doing reporting?
	Yes.
	A central part of InfoWorders' brand, yes.
	And was it part of that brand that Riles Jones would tell the audience the truth?
	Where are others from?
	Yes.
	And was it your understanding that the message to listeners and viewers was that InfoWorters and Alex Jones' show was a place where they could depend on him for the facts about all the facts?
	Yes.
	And was it your understanding that people who listen to Alex Jones believe what he said?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Did you ever come to an understanding that there were members of Jones' audience who would act based on what they heard on?
	Can you ask that question again?
	Sure.
	Was it your understanding that I believe that my understanding of that changed,
	or I was made more aware that when the man went to Comet Pizza in DC and fired multiple shots inside the pizzeria, that To my understanding was he was watching Jones' show.
	He had gotten information about this theory and acted on it.
	The fact that Jones' audience believed the things he said, was that something that Jones or informant personnel talked about?
	Yes.
	So, would it be fair to say that personnel at InfoWars and Pre-Speak Systems understood that their audience believed the things that were being said on InfoWars?
	Yes.
	But was it something that was understood around the office?
	That Jones' audience believed what he said.
	Correct?
	Yes.
	Was it your impression that Alex Jones had preset or determined their existence reported on on the InfoWars and Pre-Speak Systems?
	Yes.
	Would it be fair to say that you observed a pattern with regard to his reporting about mass casualty events?
	Yes.
	And would it be fair to say his default position when he contributed to mass casualty events?
	Was that it was a false flag?
	Yes.
	And did he have that default position for mass casualty events regardless of the particular situation?
	facts of any particular past community or past casualty of that direction?
	It seemed to me.
	Were you at some point assigned to report on potential radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster?
	Yes.
	How did that reporting assignment unfold?
	To the best of my memory, Holding a Geiger counter.
	He was at a beach in Halfloon Bay, California.
	The Geiger counter showed high levels of radiation.
	To my understanding of how the Geiger counter worked, the numbers were just higher than they were supposed to be.
	That video went viral online, so it got a lot of views in a short period of time.
	And then Jones And then also drive along the coast of California to check radiation levels.
	What was your understanding of why he had decided to send you to this assignment?
	Initially my understanding was that Jones believed there was radiation somehow coming over from Radiation
	levels to report that the US government was somehow covering up the levels of radiation.
	And was John selling any products relevant to radiation at that time?
	He was selling an iodine supplement that he advertised as an emergency Did he advertise that supplement?
	Yes.
	He instructed me to add images of the Fukushima-Diotsky nuclear power line exploding into the ad for the cell phone.
	How involved was he in your creation or do you have anything above that advertisement for that Phaidon supplement?
	Heavily involved.
	So how exactly was he heavily involved in your work on that Phaidon supplement advertisement?
	Well he Filmed the video for the report.
	So the video was Alex Jones sitting, speaking to a camera, and then I took that video and then I added in dramatic music, images of the Fukushima power plant,
	the aftermath of Chernobyl, certain advertising images for Jones watched the ad and then subsequently asked me to...
	I had put a b-roll of the actual Diachi power plant and Chernobyl throughout and he asked me to move it to the beginning and start the video off with that.
	So that was the first thing that the viewer would say.
	And did Joe's destruction the footage of Chernobyl as well?
	Yes.
	Okay, so when you were reporting on that Huffington Bay issue, what happened when I was in California?
	We had previously purchased two Geiger channels.
	None of us really knew how to operate them other than just the pamphlet.
	I don't remember exactly where we started from, but in general we drove We
	posted videos to YouTube that said that the radiation levels that we were finding were normal, to the best of our understanding, were normal.
	What was Jones' reaction to your must-have with those videos?
	He had people in the office initially call us and tell us that he was The man expressed his anger.
	It was expressed in a vague way though.
	He was just incredibly upset at the content of the videos.
	But he didn't really give any specifics other than saying that he knew the radiation levels were high.
	So why are we not seeing the USA if they were low?
	Was it your understanding from what you expressed to you that he didn't want you to report that the radiation levels on Calvary Coast were normal?
	Do you know that was the truth?
	Yes, that was my understanding.
	What was it like when Alex Jones died?
	Well, it depends on how angry he got, but he would throw things in the office, he would scream, he would throw his arms around, he would brace stuff, be very intimidating.
	I felt intimidated I was just much more aware of one way that Jones was going to be displeased
	or Yes.
	During those meetings, did he give you instructions on the narrative that he wanted you to report on?
	Yes.
	And did he indicate in any way that your compensation would depend on He would say things like, if you knock this out of the park, then you'll get a bonus check.
	And did you understand that to me, that you would get a bonus if you reported something in line with this therapist in the beginning too?
	I have a brief technical difficulty runner.
	I'll be right back.
	Your Honor, it appears that the deposition was cut off right before Mr. Oman's last answer.
	But as we discussed at Sidebar, we are going to prepare a transcript of this.
	So if anybody had any difficulty hearing, that will be available.
	Right.
	So I asked the lawyers in that last sidebar when it started, I had a little difficulty hearing some of it.
	and I asked them if they would prepare a transcript of what you just listened to and file it as an exhibit.
	So they will do that, and it will get that last question and answer in as well as everything else that you heard.
	So those of you who might have had a little difficulty will have that transcript available.
	So this will be the time that we take our afternoon recess.
	It's just about 3.15, so we'll be back at 3.35 for our next witness.
	Ron will collect the notepads.
	You'll continue to follow the rules, and I will have my friend here hold the door for me.
	Attorney Ferraro.
	Yeah, okay.
	Okay, we'll take our recess.
	Thank you.
	so so so
	so so so so
	so so so so so Alright, counsel stipulate that our panel has returned.
	Yes, Your Honor.
	Please be seated.
	Are you ready for your next witness?
	Thank you, Your Honor.
	Jillian Soto Marino.
	Very well.
	Good afternoon.
	Just watch your step coming up.
	You're going to stand it.
	Please use your right hand.
	You solemnly swear or sincerely affirm that the evidence you shall give concerning this case will be the truth.
	The whole truth is nothing but the truth.
	So I'll do God or untitled to your person.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	You may be seated.
	I just need you to state your name, slowly spelling your last name for the record, and then state and county in which you live.
	Jillian Soto-Marino, S-O-T-O-M-A-R-I-N-O, New Haven County in Connecticut.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	You may inquire.
	Thank you very much, Your Honor.
	Julian, you and I have met before, right?
	We have.
	And I want, if you could, can you say, what is your date of birth?
	9-25-1988.
	9-25-1988.
	Okay.
	And where do you fit into the Soto clan?
	I am the second born.
	Second born?
	Yes.
	And who was the first born?
	Vicki.
	Okay, so Vicki was your older sister?
	Vicki was my older sister.
	Okay.
	Now, are you, just to establish your situation, so are you presently married and do you have children?
	I am married and have two children.
	And can you tell the jury how old are your kids?
	I have a three-year-old and a two-month-old as of today.
	A two-month birthday?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And somebody, I assume, is babysitting?
	My childhood babysitter is actually babysitting my two-month-old right now.
	Okay.
	Just wanted to make sure.
	Now, can you tell us, we heard a little bit about what it was like growing up in the SOTA household, but maybe from your perspective, you know, a little bit about growing up with your brothers and sisters in the SOTA home.
	Growing up in the Soto House, there was always something happening.
	I'm one of four, so there was always yelling going on.
	It was a normal sibling relationship.
	Vicki being the oldest one, and then we had A very love-hate relationship where she was the older sister.
	I was the little sister who had to do everything that she did.
	I followed her everywhere she went.
	I needed to be just like her from an early age.
	When I was a freshman in high school, she was a senior and she was that person who I looked to for guidance, but I was that annoying little sister.
	So she gave me very little guidance.
	I remember Our upperclassmen always told freshmen at our high school that there was a pool on the third floor.
	So the piece of advice that my sister gave me my first day of freshman year was, there was no pool, and do not wear your backpack because it's not cool.
	And that was the only advice she gave me.
	She didn't help me find classes, nothing like that.
	So you looked up to her, but her feeling wasn't really mutual kind of thing?
	She loved me.
	I was her sister, but I was annoying.
	If you have a younger sister or an older sister, you probably feel kind of similar in stance there.
	And just a little bit, your mother, tell us about your mom and what she does and how she managed to get through this situation with you and your siblings.
	My mom is amazing.
	Raising, like I said, two kids.
	I don't know how she did four kids.
	And granted, my father is there to help, but my mom was our main parent who did a lot of stuff for us.
	And she was an absolutely incredible mother.
	You know, handling four kids with four very different personalities definitely had to be a challenge for her.
	But she always was there for us if we ever needed anything.
	She was there even to this day.
	I have something going on, she's the person I call.
	You know, if I question anything, I call my mom.
	She knows the answers to everything.
	And what type of work has your mom done as Was she also working during the time that she was doing this work?
	Yes, so my mom has always worked.
	She was a, well she still is, a registered nurse at a local hospital and now she is currently a discharge nurse.
	And how are the Siblings situated in that household.
	Who slept in whose room and who got special treatment and that kind of thing?
	So we have, our house is very tiny.
	So from the beginning, Vicki has always had her own room.
	And then I had my own room until my younger sister Carly got a little older.
	And then Carly and I shared a bedroom.
	And then my brother Carlos Matthew had his own room growing up.
	And then as we got a little older, Carly and I got separate rooms, but that was until we were way older.
	Okay.
	And did Vicki ever have to share the limelight or the room with anybody?
	No.
	It was the perfect child.
	Vicki never shared anything, not even clothes.
	Was that an issue between you and her?
	Constant issue between us.
	She, when I was in middle school, Vicki left her school before I did.
	So, I always would go into her bedroom and steal her clothes, thinking, I could get away with it.
	We don't go to the same school, but, um...
	You know, my brain was not fully developed and didn't realize she would be at home before I got home, so she would see me, and it always got me in trouble.
	And then I would say, no, this isn't your shirt, it's mine.
	But I always got in trouble.
	Who won those arguments?
	Never me.
	And let me show you a picture.
	The jury's seen a lovely picture of the four Four siblings, but I want to show you a picture that you shared with us.
	Thank you.
	Five, oh, 541. And actually, before you bring it up, I'm not sure this is full.
	It is not.
	Numbers here?
	541. Agreed.
	Photograph of Jillian.
	I didn't hear that, but are we good with the full?
	Yes.
	Agreed.
	Okay, why don't we show it to the jury?
	All right, so, boy, um, Did anybody ever tell you you kind of look alike?
	We, all four of us, actually look a lot alike.
	And so, you know, as I've gotten older I see more of my sister and it's a bittersweet thing to look in the mirror and see the person I look up to every day.
	Is this at Yankee Stadium?
	It was.
	So this is the summer of 2012, and we got tickets to the, I think they're called Bleacher Creatures at the Yankee Stadium.
	And it was an awesome time.
	Vicki loved the Yankees.
	I could care less for sports, but I'm a family person, so spending time with family was everything.
	So this was the summer of 2012?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And it's before school starts?
	Yes.
	As far as you know?
	Okay.
	And just to be clear, Vicki's on the...
	Vicki is the one who has a hat on.
	Okay.
	Now, we can take that.
	Was the whole Klan Yankee fans or were there some Mets fans also?
	Oh no, everyone's a Yankee fan at my house.
	Alright.
	Now, in terms of, we're not going to bring you through the details, specific details of the day.
	Were you here when your sister testified?
	I was not.
	Okay.
	I want to ask you about In the time period leading up to December 14, 2012, that weekend, December 14, 2012 was a Friday?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And can you tell the jury whether you had plans that weekend?
	I did have plans that weekend.
	That early Friday morning, I was leaving for a ski trip to Vermont with my boyfriend at the time and two of my close friends.
	Okay.
	And when did you leave on that trip?
	Did you actually go skiing?
	We made it to Vermont.
	I never made it actually skiing.
	We made it to our hotel, but we never ended up going anywhere.
	Okay.
	By the way, I do want to cover something before we get to that.
	We heard that Vicki had several diplomas, I think.
	Yes.
	Education was very important to my sister, as Carly stated earlier.
	She excelled at school.
	School was something that she was very passionate about, especially being a teacher.
	And she's known since early on that she always wanted to be a teacher, and that was something she Always was trying to help us be better students as her siblings and she stressed us going to school and having an education.
	So as that annoying little sister, I ended up my senior year applying to the same college she went to and followed her to Eastern Connecticut State University after I graduated high school.
	And did Vicki go straight through at Eastern?
	Yes.
	And did she earn a diploma or a degree?
	She did.
	She was a dual major in early childhood and history, I believe.
	Okay.
	And how about you?
	Was it a straight line for you?
	It was not a straight line for me.
	I didn't know what I wanted to do at a young age.
	I went off to college before I was even 18 years old.
	I studied communications at Eastern for two years, but it didn't work out for me and ended up leaving Eastern after two years.
	And did it take you a while before you were able to conclude your own college experience?
	Yes.
	So I actually did not go back to school.
	So I graduated high school in 2006 and left Eastern after spring, I believe, in 2008. I did not go back to college until fall.
	No.
	It was spring of...
	2013 and I ended up going to Gateway Community College to try to figure out what I wanted to do with my education.
	And I attended Gateway for a year and then I was accepted into UConn to study Human Development Family Studies.
	And when you say UConn, UConn has several facilities or places where?
	So I originally started at UConn-Stanford and then left UConn-Stanford and transferred to UConn-Waterbury.
	And have you put your degree to use in your profession?
	Yes.
	Can you still tell the jury about that?
	So I currently work for the Rape Crisis Center of Milford and I am a Community Education Coordinator and a Victim Advocate.
	And how long have you worked at the rape crisis?
	I will be with the rape crisis this October for five years.
	Can you just give the jury just a flavor of the type of services you provide?
	So I have dual jobs at the center.
	So as a community education coordinator, I work with around 12 different school districts and provide sexual assault prevention education to students from preschool all the way through 12th grade.
	And I coordinate with them, and I am one of the presenters for the program.
	and I also am a victim advocate so I work directly with victims of sexual assault now I have to turn I do have to turn back to 12, 14, 12. You said you went to Vermont when?
	I left early in the morning, prior around, I think it was like 1 a.m.
	on Friday the 12th.
	So after midnight?
	Yes.
	Why so late?
	Or is that just what...
	It was just the time that we all decided to leave.
	Okay.
	And...
	Did there come a time when you found out something was occurring back here in Connecticut?
	So shortly after we got there, my mom, being a mom, I was supposed to call her once I got to Vermont and I did not call her and so I received a phone call and I was like, I'm not answering that, I'm gonna get in trouble.
	So I ignored the call and then I received another call and I knew at that point something was going on because she didn't leave a voicemail.
	So I answered, and my mom told me that there was a shooting at Vicki's school, and they did not know where she was at this moment, that she was going to pick up my two younger siblings, and she was heading up to the school.
	So your mom, Donna, called you around roughly what time was this?
	It was Friday morning.
	So yeah, probably around 10, 10.30 a.m.
	And you said she was going to pick up who?
	Matthew, Carly and Carlos Matthew.
	So Carly we've met, Carlos Matthew or Matthew we're going to meet, but how old was Matthew at the time?
	Just like my sister, I'm really bad at math.
	I can tell you he was in high school.
	Okay.
	He was the youngest in the family, right?
	Alright.
	And so, was your mom, to your knowledge, picking up Matthew from school?
	Yes.
	And taking him to Sandy Hooks?
	Yes.
	Well, was Matthew in school in Sandy Hooks?
	Oh no, right.
	You guys are from where?
	We're from Stratford, Connecticut.
	Okay.
	So did Matthew go to Stratford High School at the time?
	Yes.
	I see.
	Okay.
	And how far is Stratford from Sandy Hook Elementary School?
	30, 40 minutes.
	Is that the commute that Vicki did every day?
	Every day.
	And what happened next?
	Your mom said to stay put in Vermont.
	Is that what it was?
	My mom is a very calm person, and when she called me, she was extremely upset.
	So I knew this was something big.
	It wasn't just like a lockdown out of school, that there was something really seriously happening.
	So we waited for a little bit to see what was going on before we ultimately decided to get back in the car and start heading back to Connecticut.
	And who was the people you were with, were they made aware of the situation?
	Yeah, so after I hung up the phone with my mom, I kind of just stood there and didn't know I was in shock.
	I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that my mom just called to tell me that there was a shooting at my sister's school.
	And I just kind of stood there, and at that time, my boyfriend realized, like, something was going on, and he asked me what was happening, and I told him, and I kept saying that if a gunman walked into my sister's room, she would give her life for her students.
	That was the type of person my sister was.
	That was the type of teacher she was.
	Before knowing anything more than that there was a shooting at the school, I knew my sister would do everything she could to keep her kids safe.
	Did knowing that make you anxious as well?
	Extremely anxious, because if she gave her life for her students, that means I didn't have a sister anymore.
	That means my life was going to forever change.
	My siblings' lives were going to change.
	My parents' life was going to change.
	And even if my sister survived, she would never be the same sister that I knew.
	About this time, at some point, did you get into the car and head back down to Connecticut?
	Yes.
	So, at some point, I don't know exactly what time, we did get back into the car and start heading back to Connecticut.
	We were really far up into Vermont, so I knew it was going to take a very long time to get home.
	And we did start making the journey back home.
	At this point, my family I knew was up in Newtown.
	But they had no information at that point.
	From my understanding, they did not know anything.
	And it was just them kind of waiting to find out where Vicki was.
	And what time about did you start heading back? - Okay.
	Between 11 and 12.30 maybe.
	Do you ever hear of Alex Jones?
	Not at that point, no.
	Do you know whether or not, let me show you, at around, do you know whether or not at the time that you were heading back home, Alex Jones was lying about the Sandy Hook shooting already?
	No.
	We showed that.
	1A.
	What did you say that?
	1AE, Your Honor.
	1A0?
	1E, sorry.
	Oh, 1E.
	Yeah, or E like an R.
	Yes, that's a full exhibit.
	They have hit the ground running and build up.
	I said, this is the attack.
	Look, people have got to find the clips the last two months.
	I said, they are launching attacks.
	They're getting ready.
	I can see them warming up with Obama.
	They've got a bigger majority in the Congress now in the Senate.
	They are going to come after our guns, look for mass shootings, and then magically I take it you have no idea this was going on?
	No.
	Let's get them up.
	And we know that you eventually could make it home and safe.
	I did.
	In terms of What happened, and we heard a little bit about this from Carly, but did there come a time, I mean, you had to change plans, obviously, and what were the plans for the weekend following this news?
	My plans for when I was up in Vermont?
	No, I'm sorry.
	I mean, when you got back, can you just describe generally the scene that you came back to?
	Okay.
	As we were coming home, when we got into Connecticut, we had to take 95 to get home and we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic because at this point it is getting closer to rush hour and also with everything that was happening in Connecticut, there was a lot more cars than normal, I'm assuming, on the highway.
	So I got back to my house.
	It was dark out.
	There were people all over my front lawn, family members, friends, and I walked into my house.
	And my mom was sitting on the couch crying, and I just walked over to her, gave her a hug, and everything It felt like autopilot.
	So one of the things that Vicki had us do growing up, and even as adults, when we got home from school, from work, we had to clean the house.
	So one of us swept the floors, one did the dishes, one put the dishes away, took out trash.
	So when my parents got home from work, the house would be clean.
	So when I got home, obviously that had not happened, and I just started picking things up because I didn't know what to do.
	Because you can't even wrap your head around hearing that your sister is dead, that someone murdered her.
	You don't know what to do with any of those feelings that you're having.
	So I went back to what I knew I was supposed to do, which was clean the house.
	Were you surrounded by family and friends?
	Yes.
	And did you participate in making arrangements with your family to bury Vicki, have a memorial, anything like that?
	I didn't help with making the arrangements.
	I went with One of my cousins, my family is very close, not just siblings, but my cousins and I are, and all of us are actually extremely close and spend a lot of time together.
	So my cousin and I actually went to the store to buy green scarves and green gloves to wear.
	Because green was Vicki's favorite color.
	And did you buy, did you buy some gloves for her?
	We bought the store out of all green gloves and scarfs that we could find.
	And at that point, there was plenty of media around, is that right?
	Yes.
	And were people trying to interview your family about Vicki?
	Yes, so we got lots of requests through our phones, through one of our cousins acted as a spokesperson for our family very early on, and there was lots of people asking him for interviews with our family.
	Is that your cousin Jim Wiltsy?
	Yes, my cousin Jim Wiltsy.
	And he's also a police officer?
	Correct.
	And he provided some buffer between you and people asking for requests?
	Yes, he did.
	And did you, you and or your sister, well I should include Matthew, you and your siblings agree to do some interviews?
	We did.
	So as a family, we made the choice early on that we wanted to speak out about who Vicki was and keep her memory out there.
	We wanted people to know who she was and that she was this person who wasn't just a teacher who was killed in Sandy Hook.
	She was a sister, she was a daughter, she was a cousin.
	And we wanted to share her memory and who she was and everything about her.
	And why did that matter to you?
	Because Vicki was this absolutely incredible person.
	Not only was she my older sister, but she was just an amazing person that I wish everyone got the chance to know.
	So it was something that we wanted to make sure that people were able to know not just this name Vicki Soto or a picture of Vicki Soto.
	We wanted them to know who she was.
	And the easiest way and the best way to do that was to share that memory, to stand in front of a camera, no matter how hard it was, to tell people who she was and the type of person she was, the type of teacher she was, the type of sister and daughter she was.
	Now, your mother is not one to do that, is that right?
	No, my mom is not one to be in front of the camera even before anything happened.
	My mom was always the person who took the pictures of all of us or videotaped things of us.
	She never was one to want to be in front of a camera.
	Did there come a time, Jillian, when you first heard about the lies That Alex Jones was telling about Sandy Hook and telling his followers or the lies.
	Yes, so early on after Sandy Hook happened, my siblings and I and my cousin Jim Wilsey did an interview in Newtown and We were kind of talking about Vicki and who she is and it started to snow.
	And we kind of, the three siblings, looked at each other and started smiling and laughing.
	Because Vicki loved the snow.
	Vicki loved Christmas, everything about Christmas and the winter, minus getting sick.
	She loved everything else about it.
	So once it started snowing, we knew, we felt like that was a sign from Vicki that she was with us.
	And we smiled, we laughed about that.
	And that was all recorded during an interview because it was live.
	And I remember seeing that interview on, I believe it was YouTube, and the comments We're just saying horrible things about if they lost somebody, how can they be laughing right now?
	How are they smiling?
	You know, this can't be real.
	This didn't happen.
	All because of a moment that was supposed to be happy where we felt our sister was twisted because people thought that meant Cindy Hook didn't happen because we were happy for a split second when everything else in our life was absolutely horrible.
	And the snow, you took as kind of a sign.
	Was that comforting to you?
	At least at the time?
	I want to say at the time, yeah it was.
	But then, because of that split moment where we reacted and felt Vicki, it put targets on our backs and we started seeing so many hateful comments on social media about us, about my sister, about Vicki, my sister, and It was awful.
	I know you had a hard time remembering exactly how old Matthew was, but how old were you when this happened?
	I was 24 years old.
	And you being that generation, did you have an online presence?
	I had an online presence, not a big one.
	I was on Facebook, I had an Instagram, and I also had Twitter.
	On Facebook I posted statuses, Instagram every now and again when I ever post a picture, and Twitter.
	I wasn't very active on Twitter, but I had a Twitter account.
	And are you able to estimate, even remotely, how many thousands or tens of thousands of these kinds of messages you would get over the years on your social media or the social media of your family?
	Thousands.
	And it wasn't...
	I know I got them directly, but I also know we received them directly through our Foundation page and with my siblings also received them.
	And...
	You talked about being in school.
	Were there times where you had to, we were made aware of this infiltrating, these lies infiltrating your own community?
	Yes.
	Can you tell the jury, give us some examples of that?
	So when I was at UConn-Waterbury, the Human Development Family Studies program was a fairly small group of people.
	And it was a night class, and we were all asked to introduce ourselves.
	It was the first day of classes.
	And when I stood up and went to introduce myself and I said my name was Jillian Soto, a student in the classroom asked me, are you related to Victoria Soto?
	And when I said yes, he started to tell me that Sandy Hook never happened, that my sister never existed, that this was all a hoax.
	And at that point, I just left the class.
	I didn't even grab any of my stuff.
	I just left and went straight to my car.
	And a friend of mine who was in the class grabbed my stuff and I ended up dropping that class the next day.
	You were talking about, I think you said you couldn't really estimate.
	You did provide a sample, example.
	Exhibit, if we could show Jillian first, Exhibit 536. I don't believe there's an objection to this.
	I've shown this to defense counsel, but I don't want to speak up.
	536?
	536. No objection.
	Okay.
	We'll offer it as a full exhibit this time.
	No objection.
	Would this be the type of thing you would get routinely, you and the family?
	Yes.
	And can you scroll down there?
	What is this picture showing?
	So there's me, Carly, and myself.
	And the picture was photoshopped to make us look like the girls from The Shining.
	And it was just another way that we were, in a sense, mocked that this never happened because here we are, two sisters that look alike and they're comparing us to these girls.
	Do you know, did you ever see the movie The Shining?
	No.
	Okay.
	So you don't know whether or not these are two essentially undead Can you go, can you just back up?
	By the way, it says Victoria Soto at Team Vicki Soto.
	Can you tell the jury what that, what is that all about?
	At Team Vicki.
	So this was something that was shared to us, that we were tagged in.
	Our foundation is Team Vicki Soto.
	Okay.
	And would you mind going back out a little, Pratika, and just showing, what are likes?
	We just blew up.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	This is a picture that I screenshot and I shared of what I was experiencing through People who thought Sandy Hook was a fake.
	So I shared this on my Instagram, I believe, and the likes there are from people that I knew that were liking it because the people who have access to any of my social media are people who I'm friends with, who know who I am, who my sister was.
	So to them, they know my sister was real.
	So they find this comical because You know, she existed.
	Sustained.
	So in terms of reaching out to others, is this one of the ways, being an online younger person, at least to me, you would reach out for comfort for your friends?
	To share the types of, occasionally share some of the things you got?
	Yes.
	I don't think a lot of our friends or any of, a lot of my friends or even some of our family members really realized what We were going through and the things that were being said until we started honestly sharing more of it with people.
	Now, you talked about the Vicki Soto Foundation, is that Memorial Foundation?
	Yes, the Vicki Soto Memorial Fund.
	Memorial Fund, thank you.
	Can you just explain to the jury, we heard a little bit about this, but what is the Vicki Soto Memorial Fund?
	So after Vicki passed away, we knew we wanted to do something in her memory and to help to carry her legacy on.
	And as I said before, education was extremely important to Vicki.
	So we started a foundation where we ended up raising money to give scholarships to graduating seniors who were pursuing a degree in education.
	So we gave away four scholarships a year, two to the local high schools and then one to a resident in Connecticut and one that's a national scholarship.
	And it is also a renewable scholarship.
	We also do book drives where Vicki absolutely loved books.
	She has collected books from a very early age.
	So I want to say in high school for Christmas she started asking for books to start building her classroom library because she always knew she wanted to be a teacher and having books through your classroom was always important.
	So when Vicki passed, that was something we wanted to make sure we were able to help bring to teachers books, because a lot of teachers don't always have, they don't get paid a lot.
	A lot of districts don't always have the money to give teachers to buy new books.
	So we started collecting gently used books and have A whole office filled with books and we do book drives where teachers can come and actually get books for their classroom and also people can drop off their books that they're no longer using to give back to teachers.
	And this is something you do to honor Vicki and her legacy?
	Yes.
	And is this part of Vicki's identity in your mind?
	Yes, completely.
	Of who she was?
	Vicki lived to be a teacher, so helping a student go into education, Even a little bit by giving them some money in the form of a scholarship is something Vicki would have loved.
	The fact that we're helping teachers by giving them books is something that she would be so proud of, especially if she saw our office has books upon books.
	We have shelves galore filled with all kinds of books from board books all the way to high school chapter books.
	And is there an annual event that is An annual fundraising event that the Vicki Soto Memorial Fund holds.
	Yes.
	Can you tell the jury about that?
	Vicki's birthday is November 4th.
	So we knew around Vicki's birthday we wanted to hold some sort of fundraiser.
	So we started doing a 5k for Vicki and this coming November will be our 10th year of doing a 5k to raise money for the foundation.
	So you had a 5k going within a year of the incident.
	Yes.
	And has the Have you had any experiences at the 5K in which you were brought into contact with the results of these lies that have been told?
	Yes.
	And can you tell the jury about that?
	So, in 2015, at the end of Our 5k, the 5k is a huge thing.
	We spend all day there setting things up and then our 5k starts around 9 o'clock.
	We do a kids fun run and then there's the actual 5k.
	So at the end of it, we have vendors who give out food.
	There's tables where people can go and see different vendors that sign up.
	And it's just a very big family fun day that we've tried to create.
	So in 2015, at the end of the 5K, when people have finished the 5K, I was driving a golf cart with two of my younger cousins.
	When a gentleman approached me and asked me if I was Jillian Soto.
	At that point, I exited the 5K, or exited the golf cart, and this gentleman took out a phone and started recording and pulled out from his pocket a picture of me and my siblings, and that's when I told my two younger cousins to head to the kids' tent and not to leave until a family member came to get them.
	So this gentleman then was like, he took the picture and shoved it in my face and asked me to explain this picture and why I was pretending that my sister existed.
	He was eerily calm, but also aggressive by shoving it in my face.
	And he was someone I did not know.
	The reason I even engaged with him is he also had a Team Vicky shirt on.
	So I figured he was someone who supported our family foundation.
	So at that point he's Asking me about this picture of me and my siblings and asking me to explain it and why I was pretending that my sister ever existed.
	And I asked him if he wanted to go somewhere private to talk because there's all these people around.
	Why did you want to talk to him?
	I didn't know what his intent was.
	I didn't know If things were going to get worse, I didn't want him going and talking to the little kids that I was with.
	I didn't want him going up to my mom and upsetting my mom.
	This is a 5k for my sister.
	It was to raise money for my sister's foundation.
	And you were with two little kids at the time he confronted you?
	I had two little kids with me, yes.
	And they were Vicki's cousins.
	Were you protecting the kids?
	Yes, which is why I told them to go straight to the kids' tent, which is right near our Vicki's tent, and they weren't allowed to leave until one of us came up.
	And I watched them get to that tent safely before engaging with this person.
	And did this escalate to the...
	To the point of, at some point did this result in, well, why don't you tell us what happened next?
	So he had no problem continuing the conversation with me and we were walking towards the Team Vicki tent and I wanted to get to our family tent because I knew that's where I would feel safest.
	I had my family there, I had Adults that, you know, I was an adult.
	I had grown-ups that I knew I trusted that would be able to keep me safe because I didn't know what this person wanted.
	He was shoving a piece of paper in my face questioning my family and who my sister was.
	And as we got closer to the tent, he just continued to Question everything about my sister and our foundation and why were we holding this 5k?
	Why were we pretending that Vicki ever existed?
	Why were we stealing people's money pretending that Sandy Hook actually even happened?
	And did there come a time when this man was arrested?
	That's just a yes or no question?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Now, I want to show you Exhibit 13, which is a video that the jury has seen, starting at 56 seconds, I believe.
	But right now, finishing up with the man of the hour, truly getting his 15 minutes of fame for something that matters.
	Man, look at that.
	Koofy Weinman up there going, "Yeah, I thought I'd be an MPP.
	It's so incredible." Mano Hall, the guy with a real curse jumps up there and says, "I'm losing his job.
	Staged by criminal law, it's the government." And he joins us now, a listener of the transmission.
	Had a good feeling that he was a listener.
	We checked it out online, found some of his work, knew he was.
	He's a listener via YouTube, a viewer via YouTube, like so many tens of millions a week are.
	And he joins us, Matthew Mills.
	Matthew, closing comment.
	And you're the kind of stand-up guy.
	You know, you're the kind of guy we need as an East Coast reporter that we don't have the money to have you full-time.
	We can pay you when you go out on events.
	In the future, you're the type of guy that'd be cheaper than Senator Ja'Carri is a great guy, you know, all the way from Texas to the East Coast.
	Well, maybe we should talk about, we're talking about hiring Sergeant Biggs right now to work for us as a reporter as well.
	But, you know, I think you've got what it takes.
	Because, you know, you got in there and you did it, buddy.
	You got the right stuff, so we salute you.
	How would you like to go on an assignment at least once a month for us on the East Coast and get paid to do it?
	Can we go back a few frames and do a freeze frame on that gentleman?
	When he's in the...
	I believe it's the...
	There you go.
	You recognize that man, Jillian?
	I do.
	Can you tell the jury who that man is?
	That's the man who attacked me at my sister's 5K.
	We show up 525 I'd offer as a full exhibit.
	Objection, objection.
	I'm sorry.
	No, I'm sorry.
	No, I didn't hear you.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Can we bring, uh, can we bring up this picture?
	Is this the man that was in the video that Alex Jones was applauding for his courage?
	It is.
	That shirt that this man is wearing, is that a Team Vicki shirt?
	It is.
	And is this man, uh, is this what you observe with this man in the process of him getting arrested by the police?
	It is.
	Was it Stratford Police?
	Yes.
	Do you have any idea at this time that this man was a man that was promoted for his courage by Alex Jones?
	I did not.
	That was asked to go on missions?
	I did not.
	Almost done, Chile.
	Okay.
	Can you give the jury just a sense, just a sense, as to how these lies and these have affected you and your community and your family? as to how these lies and these have affected you Just a sense.
	These lies have taken away my sense of security, my sense of safety, things that are supposed to be joyful.
	You don't know what's going to happen.
	Every time I introduce myself to somebody and I say, I'm Jillian Soto Marino, I don't know what's going to happen after that.
	I don't know what It's gonna be said to me.
	I don't know if my life is in jeopardy at that moment because I don't know who that person is.
	It affects me at work because I don't know, even then, if I introduce myself and use my full name, what could happen?
	So even at work, I no longer use Soto.
	I use my name as Jillian Marino because I don't know what could happen.
	As a mother, I worry for my children all the time.
	You know, I don't know what people are capable of.
	I've seen what people say online.
	I've seen what has happened to me.
	And I can't...
	I worry that someone's gonna say something to my kids.
	You know, my son is three.
	He knows who his aunt is.
	He knows that she's passed away, that she's dead, but he doesn't know anything more.
	And I worry that someone's going to say something to him, that someone's going to tell him that his aunt never existed.
	And to him, he's three.
	He doesn't know anything, so I worry about that.
	I've had to have conversations with my husband about having to have conversations with our children before we probably ever want to because I don't want my kids to be asked by somebody that they don't know why Our family pretends that Sandy Hook happened.
	I want to make sure my kids hear from us that how their aunt died.
	I want them to hear from us that there are people who say that Sandy Hook didn't happen.
	I worry that they're going to have to grow up in a world where they're taking on the burden of having to continue to defend who their aunt is, just like my family has had to do for almost 10 years now.
	Speaking of your family fighting, can you just tell us how this has affected your mother, Donna?
	Because she's not going to probably talk about that.
	Lisa, earlier, my mom's an incredible person.
	She's raised four of us working multiple jobs and has Done an incredible job.
	She has four children who are good people, who graduated college, who are productive members of society.
	And then, when my sister was murdered, it broke my mother completely.
	To mourn for her child and to defend who her daughter is every single day has broken her.
	My mother will always show up for her kids.
	She will always be an incredible mother and nana to her grandchildren.
	But she's not the same mother I had before my sister was murdered.
	And I said every day she has to defend who her child is.
	While running a foundation, she still has to defend who her child is every day because People have not stopped asking.
	People have not stopped questioning us.
	We get to the days when this trial started, we still get messages on our Facebook page saying, why are we going after more money?
	We're never satisfied.
	We're actors.
	And she still has to defend them.
	And my mom is the main person who runs my sister's foundation.
	So she's the first person who sees these messages and she has to In the Latin, as her daughter, it's so hard to watch that she has to go through that.
	As a mother, I can't imagine what she's going through, having to defend who her child is while also trying to mourn her child.
	And one last question.
	Has your family continued to be attacked during this trial?
	Yes.
	And was Carly savagely attacked online?
	Yes.
	Thank you.
	I have no further questions.
	Attorney Patis?
	So it's fair to say, is it that man that prior to your sister's murder, was the name Alex Jones?
	Yes.
	Have you come to run it since?
	Yes.
	I believe the first time I heard the name Alex Jones was sometime in 2014. Greatly.
	Yes.
	I want to say yes, but I'm not 100% positive.
	Yes.
	Is that the interview that was given with old Maiden Kelly?
	So I've never watched anything that Alex Jones has been a part of until court, but with being close with my family, it's something we've always talked about, and I've heard about it from them.
	That Maiden Kelly did.
	Yes.
	You were shown a video here in court 1D where Mr. Jones says they're coming, they're coming, they're coming.
	Have you guys seen that before coming to court?
	No.
	Is it your testimony that before coming to court you never saw a video?
	Yes.
	And this man, Mr. Mills, he approached you and your sister's road race, correct?
	My sister's 5K, yes.
	5K, while road race, same thing.
	Oh, yes.
	Did he tell you it was sent?
	No.
	Did he mention InfoWars' name?
	No.
	Did he mention InfoWars' name?
	No.
	Yes.
	Anybody ever write to you from InfoWars?
	Not that I know of.
	Not that I know of.
	Have you ever reached out to try to call?
	Uh, no.
	We're all set, Judge.
	Thank you.
	Thank you, Julie.
	So, I can tell you that we, um, are tracking still ahead of schedule.
	Um, so I told you I would keep you posted in that regard.
	Um, I told you on Friday I have reported the defense's expectation that they would call Mr. Jones directly in their case in chief at the end of this week, but I understand that the defense is now expecting to call him next week.
	Is that correct, Attorney Pattis?
	Yes, Judge.
	Alright, so I will release you for the day.
	Just very briefly, and I apologize for saying this over and over again to you.
	You probably could repeat it back to me.
	But continue.
	We've come so far at this point without issues.
	Continue to avoid any media coverage.
	Continue to follow the rules.
	No research and the like.
	And please, Don't feel like you can't report any problems.
	I encourage you to report problems for the reasons that I stated earlier.
	So with that, I hope you have safe travels home.
	We will start again tomorrow at 10 a.m.

▲