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Sept. 29, 2022 - Depositions & Trials
02:27:42
Watch Live: Alex Jones Defamation Trial: Sandy Hook 'Hoax' Lawsuit - Connecticut Trial Day Eleven
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Time Text
Good morning, Marshal.
Good morning, everyone.
Please be seated.
For the record, we are week 3, day 11 in the Lafferty v.
Jones related matters.
If council can please identify themselves for the record.
Good morning, Your Honor.
Chris Maddy on behalf of the plaintiffs, joined by colleagues Good morning.
We were working on the church thing.
I've lost very good time.
I've only got 10 more minutes to go.
If not, don't you tell me.
I don't care.
Yeah, Your Honor, so we spent our hour this morning talking and we have some ideas about how to make the charge shorter and also whether there are some ways that we can possibly agree.
We know that there's some serious areas of disagreement.
But what we think would be much more efficient is for us to use the hour that we were going to spend with the court today to talk to each other, have some time over the weekend.
And what we would like is to get on the court's calendar possibly Monday afternoon.
Is that possible?
Did Stevenson get booked?
I'm still waiting to hear back from one attorney about that.
Well, I would say...
There was no question.
There was just...
I wonder if we'll do this walkie.
I'll talk to Ron in the next second.
I'll do it one day after.
Just to amplify, thank you for the honor.
We identified two or maybe three areas of one of those agreement.
And we agreed to an agreement about the organization and consolidated.
There was actually...
Great.
What we said, can you guys work off of that?
You know what we're going to do is we've converted it to Word.
So we're going to actually...
Right.
Right.
No, so what we'll do is we'll share our red line, and then we'll...
I'm going to be on a train Monday morning.
We could just do it on a phone call.
I have an argument.
I have a state's great form Monday morning.
Yeah.
All right, because I will be on a train when it's 11 to 12.
So that doesn't...
My argument is 11 to 12.
Yeah.
Well, we'll see if this other one does not get spent.
No, you can be pretty quick.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank
you. Thank
you. Thank
you. Thank you.
You're very welcome.
I think he's getting the jury now.
Is there something?
I'm pretty sure.
One more here.
I just know I don't want to come in now.
I know you ruled.
Yeah, that's right.
right we'll make that exception absolutely okay
okay
good morning - Okay.
Good morning, everyone.
Welcome back.
Happy Thursday.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Please be seated.
Make yourselves comfortable.
Just as a reminder, please be seated.
We are ending at 1 today, remember, and then we have tomorrow walk, so we will pick up again.
On Tuesday, just as a reminder, we will take our morning recess this morning for our staff to give them a break from their hard work.
All right, Mr. Parker, I'm going to resume the stand.
There's water in the room.
I know I ask you every time, but one time you're going to forget.
First thing I do want to get into this.
It's better to feel.
All right, please proceed.
Of course, you remain under Mr. Parker.
What are the minutes to do?
Certainly help yourself.
Good morning, Your Honor.
- Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
Good morning, Robbie. - Hey.
Robbie, when we left off yesterday, you were describing for the jury a very difficult event in which you found Alyssa in a coat closet at Emily's viewing, where she was saying, I don't think I can do this, I don't think I can do this.
That's right.
So I want you to tell the jury what it is that she couldn't do and why.
For both of us, just all that prep and trying to figure out what to do for her viewing and trying to, this is the start of this You know, our way in our culture of trying to remember somebody who you love that passed on and share that with everybody.
And trying to overcome the taint that was associated with that.
We couldn't just focus on just grieving our daughter.
We couldn't just focus on doing a memorial service for Emily.
Piled on top of that were all these concerns about our safety and what might happen.
So Alyssa and I talked about our grief and how hard that was going to be.
And I think everybody can understand how hard that alone would be on somebody.
Alyssa's one of the strongest people that I know.
And she can handle very, very hard things.
So when I saw her in the closet like that, and I saw her broken, it was all that extra weight on top of her.
We can control what happens at a memorial.
We can plan those things.
That's in something that we are capable of doing.
This unknown entity that exists out there is what's frightening.
And that is what felt so heavy.
And that's what caused her to break.
This concern that people would infiltrate Emily's memorial, who were claiming that you were actors and that was all deferred.
Exactly.
And Emily, that was December 21st was Emily's viewing, right?
Correct.
And she was buried the next day?
Yes.
And she's buried next to her grandpa?
Yeah.
How long did you stay out in Utah before coming back to see you?
We stayed through the new year.
My birthday and my middle daughter's birthdays are in January.
And we were there with family, and so I couldn't have cared less about my birthday that year.
But for Madeline, I felt like it was important to give her an opportunity.
We had lived away for so long, we wanted to be there for her birthday.
So we left probably that second full week of January.
Okay.
And Alyssa described it and you had begun describing this assault that week of the funeral of online comments and threatening and harassing behavior.
Did that continue through the time you came back to Sandy Hook?
Oh, absolutely.
Yes.
And I think you mentioned for the jury that during those first couple of weeks, you were able to identify in these comments associations with Infowars and Alex Jones, but you hadn't yet quite put together what that was?
No, not really.
These were just flashes of information, and I hadn't been able to start to put anything together yet, especially in that first week.
I really, really just wanted to focus on On the funeral and focus on my girls and focus on Alyssa.
So that's where my focus was.
In January did you start to get a better idea of who this Alex Jones was?
Yeah, some of those dots started to be connected.
I remember, I believe it was on our flight back from Utah heading back here.
I was on the plane, and they had these televisions on the plane now, and my television screen wouldn't let me change the channel or anything.
And it was on CNN, and I saw Alex Jones appear on Piers Morgan.
Piers Morgan was, at that time, an evening host on one of CNN's programs?
Yeah, I wasn't very familiar with it, but yes.
And was it then that you realized that the Alex Jones that you were seeing on TV was the same Alex Jones and InfoWars that was popping up online?
Yeah, that was the first time.
I mean, I was just sitting there and just trying to decompress from everything.
There was just something about just being there in that solitude and in that silence where that kind of all kind of came together for me, like Infowars, Alex Jones, seeing what Alex Jones was saying, seeing how he was behaving and how he was acting, and seeing that on a national scale, being broadcasted out to millions of people, starting to understand the influence that he had and the following that he had.
That's when all that kind of started to come together.
Do you know if you saw the video that Mr. Jones published just three days after the shooting in which he referred to the Sandy Hook blooper reel?
I was aware of that from posts being made on social media accounts.
The jury has been presented with one of Mr. Jones's broadcasts at the end of January called "Why People Think Sandy Cook is a Hoax."
And what I'd like to do, Mr. Parker, is play clip 6D. Your Honor, this is in evidence as it infowars broadcast on January 27, 2013. of
Exhibit 6.
It looks like he's saying, okay, do I read off the card?
He's laughing, and then he goes over and starts basically breaking down and crying.
So let's show that clip.
I'm finished there, and they're getting ready to make a press onto the microphone short.
So let's show that. - Sure.
Okay.
20 jobbing partners.
My family is one of the family's best.
We lost a child yesterday and we're thinking of a family Mr. Parker,
What I'd now like to do is play a portion from Alex Jones' deposition given earlier this year concerning the same video.
Is your action relevant to this way, Mr. Scott?
It's an additional party.
Is that relevant to this way?
I'm going to allow it.
Let's go to 47B.
It looks like the same.
Okay, over here on the corner.
He's laughing and then he goes over and starts basically working on crime.
So let's go back to that.
I haven't touched this.
Okay, all I know is they're seizing on it.
They stayed as fast and furious they had a balance on the ground.
No, you have to touch the right because you put it in slow motion, right?
Are you saying, you're saying we got through this mistake?
I'm saying that the footage that you just showed had been put in the slow motion, correct?
Yes.
Mr. Burke, did you see Mr. Jones smirk when he was watching you give, come up to give your statement?
Yeah, I noticed that.
Are you aware, Mr. Parker, that you're not the only parent that Mr. Jones is referred to as an actor?
Correct.
Let's play additional testimony from Mr. Jones concerning that same video.
What do you have to do, Judge?
All right, Mr. Jones, I want to bring up Exhibit Number 47.
Do you recall publishing a video in January of 2013 in which you reported to your audience on the significant issue?
No, I don't really know.
Okay, so for the record, we're going to be playing 47A. People who have been coached, people who have been given cue cards, people who are behaving like actors.
You refer to people who have been coached, right?
Yes.
Who are you referring to?
People like Parker and others.
You know you were talking about Mr. Parker as being one of the people who was coached, right?
Yes, I think that's who we're believing to.
And you're referring to people who have been given cue cards, right?
And are you referring to Mr. Parker there?
Yes.
And others.
And people who are behaving like actors, right?
And there you're talking about Mr. Parker, correct?
Yes.
And do you recall who you believed was behaving like an actor?
I mean, there are a lot of people.
In terms of individuals, okay, you said people who are behaving like actors.
You're referring to Robbie Parker, number one, right?
Yes.
Okay.
And you're referring to other people as well, correct?
Yes.
In 2013, Robbie, - Robby, can you describe for the jury what your mindset was and how to deal with all of the threats and harassment that were being directed towards you and your family? - can you describe for the jury what your mindset was and how to deal with all of the threats and harassment that were I mean, I've been taught that, like, You don't engage with a bully.
If somebody's bullying you, you ignore them and eventually they get tired and they leave you alone.
And that had worked for me in my life.
And so that was kind of how I approached this.
We just need to just weather this storm.
And they're mad and they're upset and all this is going on.
This is a big news story right now, but it's going to die down and it's going to go away.
I remember a conversation that I had with my friend Brad, who had been managing the Facebook page.
And he was begging me to, like, we need to do something.
We need to say something.
We need to post something, or we need to combat what they're saying.
And my response to him at the time was, you know, these are just people who are taking a break from looking for Bigfoot.
After a few weeks, they're going to leave us alone, and they're going to go back trying to find Bigfoot.
Like, we're not going to say anything.
And so On the Facebook page how we were handling, because it was so inundated.
It was so inundated.
And people were messaging like the administrator saying, aren't you guys going to do anything about this?
And we had eight people that we had allowed to be administrators on the page who just spent as much free time as they could report, ban, delete, report, ban, delete, report, ban, delete, trying to get rid of this stuff, just to try and get it far enough down on the page so that if anybody came to the page, The first thing they would see would be something about Emily and not all of this filth.
And then by the middle of January, I finally just turned the page off.
I felt like I couldn't protect Emily's name or her memory anymore.
So I had to get rid of it.
Throughout 2013, after you turned that page off, were people still able to reach you?
They were able to, yeah, in a number of ways.
Whether it be by phone, or by email, or by letters to my house, or through my own personal Facebook account.
What steps did you take to try and ensure that your daughters, Madeline, Samantha, and Alyssa, and you were safe?
I mean, the first thing, I didn't even know about privacy settings and stuff like that.
And I didn't realize that I had left myself that exposed on social media.
And Facebook was the only social media account I had.
So I changed my privacy settings.
And I didn't realize that they could still get ahold of me or try and contact me through other ways on social media.
As far as my girls, all I could do was pray for them and pray for our family.
I didn't want them to never be exposed to this and I didn't want them to know what was going on.
As far as me and Alyssa, I shared with Alyssa what I felt like I could or what I felt like she had told me that she could handle.
She made it clear that she wanted to know about stuff but not too much details.
We had been There was a contact with the FBI. Her name was Ashley Hall.
We had been introduced to her at one of the meetings that we had had, and so I would forward stuff to law enforcement.
Oh, and the other thing would just be trying to report this stuff.
I would report it to Facebook.
I would report things to YouTube.
I was like pleading and pleading for their help.
Did there come a point, Robbie, where you felt like in order to protect your family you had to move from Newtown?
Eventually, yeah, and that was not as easy as a decision as some people might think.
We had this family here of people who knew exactly what we were experiencing.
Meaning the other victims' families.
And I didn't know if I could move anywhere in the country and find that kind of a support system.
But I was so...
I was so ashamed in my belief that I had brought this on everybody.
Because I was the first person that said something.
I was the person that laughed.
I was the person who was being targeted.
And by that, as we see, it went to everybody.
I became they, and we all became they.
The they that he talks about.
That was all of us.
You felt responsible for that?
Yeah, absolutely.
Do you still feel responsible for that?
On a really deep emotional level, I do.
Logically, I know that that's not true, but I can't help but feel that still.
So...
My relationship with this family of ours, in my mind, was deteriorating and I didn't know how to be around them.
I didn't...
I just assumed the worst.
And, um...
And eventually we started looking at places to move because I just...
Wanted to get some anonymity.
My girls were young enough at the time that I felt like we could move and we can find a place where this doesn't happen to us anymore.
And I want to give them as normal as an experience as they can where the hardest thing that they have to deal with is just trying to remember who their sister was.
That's all I wanted.
I wanted some anonymity and I wanted to get away and I wanted to provide something that I felt like I wasn't able to do here.
So as a result of all that, did you and your family pick up, sell your house, buy a new house, go through a move in order to get away?
Exactly.
Where'd you move to?
We went back to the Pacific Northwest.
That's where I had gone to school.
It was sweet because That's where our family was whole at one point.
Emily lived there.
Samantha was born there.
And so finding a job in that same region was really meaningful and felt like something that could connect us and our entire family somehow.
And you had to find a job too, right?
Yeah.
Were there jobs that you didn't pursue because you were concerned about what people would find if they Googled you in connection with the hoax?
That's what kept me from looking for jobs for a long time.
There were other opportunities that would come up.
That knew about my background would I remember getting an email from a man who He had been given a grant of some hundreds of millions of dollars and they were studying effects of childhood trauma effects of childhood grief and he asked me to be if I wanted to be a part of that and That's right up my alley and that would have been something I would have loved to have explored I was worried about What I would bring to that organization if I showed up.
I didn't want my association to taint something that I thought was really special.
Meaning that this effort to study childhood trauma would also be targeted by people who believe these lies about you?
Yeah, because I've been seeing it.
I've been seeing it in the foundations that other families had set up.
I've been seeing the things that they were experiencing.
I was seeing With Alyssa and Michelle, and they're trying to get Safe and Sound started, and what we were doing with the Emily Parker Art Connection.
I didn't want to bring that to anybody else.
When did you move?
My resignation date was December 31st, 2013, so just a little over a year after the shooting.
Can we play Exhibit 15A, please?
Your Honor, this is in evidence as Broadcast the Alex Jones show called Sandy Hook False Narratives vs.
published March 14, 2014.
I mean, folks, we've got video of Anderson Cooper with clear blue screen out there.
He's not there in the town square.
We've got people clearly coming up and laughing and then doing the fake crying.
We've clearly got people where it's actors playing different parts of different people.
- Yes.
- Parker, this is March, 2014.
- Yeah. - After you moved in early 2014, were you able to find the anonymity for your family that you wanted?
No, that did not go according to plan.
Tell the jury what happened.
Just on a personal side note, Alyssa couldn't remember our anniversary yesterday.
It was March 14th.
So this was on our anniversary.
Okay, so we get to...
We get to Washington State and we start renting in a town to just kind of get to know the area before we bought a house.
Within a couple months we buy a house and we're right back into the grind.
I'm working.
I'm coming home.
We're renovating this place.
I'm doing All the demo work and so by day I'm swinging a sledgehammer and by night I'm working on like two pound babies.
And all of that was very cathartic in a sense of just kind of just getting what we were looking for.
We had some property.
We got the girls chickens that they could take care of as part of like their just needing the love on something and it was a therapy for them.
I'm at work one night and I was in this routine at that point of periodically just scanning the internet to see what was out there, to see what new thing was coming up.
We hadn't even, we weren't even halfway through the remodel on this new house, and I see this video on YouTube of all of the county documents about the sale of our house, how much it cost, the address, and the person going through all of that and following, basically following our steps and the steps of this house and everything.
And so immediately that That sense of security that I thought that we had was totally shattered.
They found you?
Absolutely.
Did you tell Alyssa about that?
Yeah.
I came home the next morning from work and just let her know about what I found.
I didn't show it to her though.
After learning that your family had been found in Washington, Did you see Alyssa deteriorate in her ability to just carry on?
That's right.
Did you do your best to take care of her and family even as that was happening?
Of course I did.
Just our approach, it was like anything, no matter what we did, if we Trying to do something good in the world, and we wanted to try and let the world know, like, hey, we have this thing that we want to promote about school safety.
We have this thing that we want to promote about Emily's love of art and how we can bring hope and healing to some other kids.
Any time that we did anything, just like that video of me smiling was just totally defiled as soon as we did it.
I'm going to use it at 17. Your Honor, this is in evidence as a broadcast, the Alex Jones Show, titled Bombshell, Sandy Hook Massacre Was a DHS Illusion, published May 13,
2014. Your will to go up there and have eight police cars block you tonight away and Children
did not die.
Teachers did not die on December 14, 2012. It just could not have happened.
And it's in their words.
It's not about wolfgang things, or it's just my opinion.
It's what they say.
I mean, their own words actually show that it could not have happened.
Mr. Parker, after Wolfgang Halvig said children did not die, teachers did not die, what video did Mr. Jones pull out for the world to see?
Let me slide one again.
This gentleman, Wolfgang Halbig, you're familiar with him, yes?
Very familiar with Wolfgang, yeah.
Has he contacted you and Elissa throughout the years?
Numerous times.
Did you receive voicemails from Wolfgang Haldig throughout the years?
Emails, lots and lots of emails and voicemails.
Did you receive a voicemail from Wolfgang Halbig on November 7th, 2019?
That's right.
Can I pause you for a second?
Because this time around March of 2014 when these videos were coming out, that correlates to this transition for us and that correlates to them finding us.
Alyssa at this time When that sense of security got shattered and all this work and effort that we put into, again, she was fantastic.
And we were moving and she was doing everything she could to set things up for our girls and we scoured what school we wanted to go to.
And Alyssa went and met with school administrators.
And she was doing everything she could to provide that sense of security for our family.
And I was doing everything I felt like I could.
And when these videos came out and we had another wave of onslaught, another wave of assault, another wave of more and more and more attacks, and then people finding out where we lived, she absolutely broke.
And again, there's nobody in my life and there's nobody I've ever known that's stronger than Alyssa.
And she just couldn't, it's a very vague term, she couldn't do it anymore.
And what that meant was She couldn't make phone calls to set up appointments for the girls anymore.
She couldn't communicate with people.
She shut down.
She absolutely shut down.
She couldn't respond to emails.
She contacted Michelle Gay and told her that she wanted to step down from Safe and Sound.
This is Josephine's mom.
Correct.
The co-founder of Safe and Sound Schools.
She said, I want to step away.
I don't want to do this anymore.
And Michelle was very understanding, but also said, I'm not going to let you step away, but you take as much time as you need.
Alyssa, we had split up our, you know, our responsibilities in the house.
I do this, she does that.
She asked me to take over all those things.
She had missed, like, she was in charge of, like, paying the bills, and she had missed a couple payments, and so she just asked me to take that over.
So I was...
I was doing a lot of shopping and I was doing a lot of that kind of work on top of the other things that I was doing.
Just the way your house ran?
I'm sorry?
Just the way your house ran and had to change.
Exactly.
I have one second.
I want to play another clip from that same video we just watched May 13, 2014.
Sweet 17F.
You got parents laughing?
ha, ha, ha, watch this, and they go, method acting.
I mean, it's just ridiculous.
You got coroners that start laughing, and I don't mean uncomfortably.
I mean, like, laughing with the state police when they're giving press conferences.
I mean, it just is the fakest thing such a $3 bill.
And you better get ready for more of it, folks.
Now let's go to his three minutes to the school board there in Connecticut.
My name is Wilkane Calabrese.
Is that what you did, Mr. Parker?
The fake crying?
The method acting?
No.
I want to go to 19i.
This is a few months later.
Your Honor, this is in evidence.
As a broadcast of the Alex Jones Show, the title FBI says nobody killed at Sandy Hook.
September 25th, 2014. That
was September 2014. Mr. Parker, your family still deluged with the threats and harassment as these broadcasts were being played.
They were coming in these waves and it was almost like I knew when Alex Jones said something because we would get a huge wave of stuff.
And so that's when I knew something was up and that's when I knew I needed to Step up my game, so to speak, as far as being vigilant about what's going on, being vigilant about our surroundings, being vigilant about what's being said.
So when you would feel these kind of increases, what I hear you saying is that you then realized that you needed to try and stay on top of what was happening in order to protect your family?
Correct.
Can you do that by searching online for what was being said?
As much as I could tolerate, I really started to hate that video.
That video?
You mean the video of yourself?
Even if I went onto YouTube to look up something funny that my girls wanted me to watch, on the suggestion side there would always be all this Sandy Hook stuff because of things that I would search.
And I would see my face on there with that screenshot of me smiling all the time.
And I just hated it.
And I hated seeing it myself.
So when I would go online and look and try and do this vigilance, I had to face that all the time.
Let me show you Exhibit 20A.
This is in evidence, Your Honor, as it broadcasts the Alex Jones Show on December 27, 2014.
When I just saw the heavy, heavy, heavy scripting, that was what was so clear.
And then the parents laughing, and then one second later doing the actor breathing to cry.
I mean, it's just over the top.
Degree.
Yep.
Over the top six.
And we know they've staged other stuff before.
I want to take you to a broadcast of the Alex Jones Show on February 12, 2015. 2015.
This is in Exhibit 24.
We'll be playing 24F.
It stinks that high head.
You got the actor father who comes out, gets into character.
I was a theater major.
I worked with actors.
I used to watch them get ready before they would go out and cry like that.
I was in the play R-Town and I'm sitting there watching these other people about to go out and do the funeral scene.
And they're pumping themselves up, doing exactly what he did.
And then he walks out and then he's totally sad, crying, he was cracking jokes right before.
That's an actor.
That's an actor.
Thank you.
Yeah, that was really hard to hear yesterday.
I didn't...
I knew I... I knew I was a target of theirs.
I didn't...
Before he said that, I didn't understand how concise of a target and how...
how deliberate they were about it.
How immediately, in Rob Dew's words, they put it out.
Exactly.
Let's go to, uh...
Now, Robbie, the harassment and the threats that your family have suffered through haven't just been online, have they?
No.
You've been confronted in public?
Yes.
Would you tell the jury about what happened in 2016?
We, through the art connection, Emily Parker art connection that we started, I found this other nonprofit group in Seattle, Washington.
They're called Art with Heart.
And it was an amazing organization that they had developed this curriculum of art therapy workbooks and stuff and so I contacted them and let them know who we were and wanted to see if we could collaborate and donated some money to their organization.
They sent us some of their books which we immediately gave to the girls and the girls just ate it up and they loved it and it was so fun to work through that stuff with the girls and this was a great group and So we contacted them in late 2015 and developed this relationship.
And then in 2016, in the fall, they were having their fundraising luncheon or whatever it is that you do in the nonprofit world.
This is the fall of 2016?
Correct.
So they invited us to come.
And they wanted us to be a part of it.
And they were like, it'll be fun.
You guys can come to the hotel where we're doing this.
The girls can swim in the swimming pool.
They invited Alyssa and I to just participate in some of the festivities and just let people in that area know how wonderful this organization was and how much we supported them.
So we were really looking forward to this weekend and we drive up to Seattle.
I drop Alyssa and the girls off at the hotel.
In Seattle being Seattle, I had to park my car like somewhere else.
And so I went and found a parking garage a couple blocks away and started walking back to the hotel.
We're like almost four years removed from Sandy Hook and 3,000 miles away from Sandy Hook.
And I was really excited to do this.
And I'm walking down this random street in Seattle.
And this guy walking the other direction kind of gives me one of those looks like, You look familiar.
And so this hasn't happened to me for a long time as far as somebody recognizing me in person.
So I pause and I look at him and he asks me, he's like, didn't you have a Didn't you have a daughter that was killed?
And I said, yeah, my daughter Emily, she was a student at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
And generally in these encounters, as awkward as they are, the person usually wants to give you a hug and express their condolences and all of that.
And so I reached my hand out to shake his hand.
And he looked down at my hand.
And he just stared at me.
I'm sorry, Judge, for what I need to say here.
He was looking at me and he said, how do you fucking sleep at night, you fucking piece of shit?
And I just kind of was really taken back by that and I stared at him.
And he had so much venom and so much hatred for who he thought that I was.
How much fucking money did you get from the fucking government, you fucking asshole?
By this point I could see the hotel.
I was right across the street from the hotel where the girls were at, and I was walking in that direction.
And so I turned around, and I just started walking away.
And I wanted to get as far away from my family as I could.
And this guy just kept following me, and he was just in my ear the whole way, just Emily's alive, isn't she?
She's alive, huh?
Son of a bitch, she's alive.
And I just kept walking, and I just kept walking.
And people are staring at us, and he won't shut up.
And he just keeps going, and he keeps going.
And I'm just trying to hold it in.
For years I've been dealing with this, and everybody was online, or everybody was in the comfort of their studio in some other state, and I never had a chance to tell anybody how I felt or what I thought.
I retreated every single time something happened to us.
They found us, so we need to stay hidden.
We need to put another layer of camouflage on us.
Nobody can know where we are.
And I just retreated and retreated.
And now this guy was in my face and he wouldn't leave me alone.
And he said Emily's name one more time.
And I turned around and I looked at him.
And just...
I'm paraphrasing at this point, but just how dare you?
You're talking about my daughter.
She was killed.
Who do you think you are?
How do you sleep at night?
I use some colorful language as well.
I'm not trying to say that I held it all together.
We went at it.
And we were yelling at each other.
And that circle of people around us got wider and wider.
And then finally I just said, I don't owe you anything.
I don't owe you anything.
And I turned around and I walked off.
And I just kept looking over my shoulder to make sure he wasn't following me.
And he went the other direction.
And I spent 20 minutes circling the block, making sure that nobody else saw, nobody else was following me, that nobody else was tipped off as to who I was or where I was going.
Alyssa was texting me.
Where are you?
Can you stop by the van to remember to get the girls' goggles?
And I just kept walking and walking.
And I needed to cool down.
Because I had to put on that front again.
I had to get back to my girls and my family.
And I had to be okay.
I had built this wall up of...
I wanted to protect them so bad and I knew that that was really kind of impossible, but I had to put that front up and I had to make them feel like they were safe.
And so I had to get myself back there before I could go back to the hotel.
When you were able to settle yourself, you shared that story with Alyssa.
I got to the hotel.
She texted me what room they were in.
I went up and so I had a knock on the door because I didn't have a key.
And Alyssa opened the door and I thought I was There.
I thought I was composed.
And I just wanted to tell her, this guy just recognized me and gave me a hard time.
She opened the door and she took one look at me.
And her face went white.
And she just said, what happened?
What happened to you?
And she could see it in me.
And I just started bawling, and the girls were like on the bed watching the show, and I just darted into the bathroom.
And she came in and shut the door, and I sat down on the toilet seat, and she just put her hands on my face.
And was just like, tell me what happened.
What happened?
And this was in fall of 2016?
Correct.
Why don't we play?
You have a 35C, which is in Evidence, Your Honor.
It's a broadcast of the Alex Jones Show on November 18th, 2016. I mean, he's a worse actor than Glenn Beck.
Glenn Beck's fake crime.
Okay?
I mean, this is disgusting.
Okay.
Sweating, drop your part.
Thank you.
Did you hear Mr. Jones say this is disgusting?
I hadn't seen that video before, but that's what he said.
Let's go to 35D, Your Honor.
This is from the same broadcast on November 18th, 2016. Then we see footage of one of the Maybe that's real.
I'm sure it is!
Did there come a point, Robbie, where you decided that the approach you had taken all these years of trying to ignore it, trying to keep your head down, trying to be anonymous, wasn't working?
Or I should say, did you decide to do something else?
There were some steps that had happened for me to get there, but yes.
When you did get there, what was it that prompted you to decide that you needed to do something else?
The first thing was that we've been going on six years now, and my thought of they'll go away eventually just wasn't coming to pass.
Madeline and Samantha were getting older at this point.
They were getting Chromebooks at their school.
They knew of these things peripherally.
But I felt like I focused on trying to protect Emily.
And they knew that.
And if they were to come across this stuff, I don't know if they would have known that I was doing anything to protect them.
I already felt like I failed Emily as a dad when she was alive.
Because we sent her to school.
And I was especially starting to feel like I was failing her in her death.
Because of what people were saying about her.
And what they were saying about me trying to remember her.
In 2018, there was the shooting at Parkland High School.
Shortly after that, we were contacted by somebody that shares our same faith that Alyssa and I knew.
He had lived in Washington.
He had since moved to Florida.
And he knew the family of one of the victims in Parkland.
And he asked if we would be willing to talk with them.
So it was an open-ended invitation at any time they wanted to talk to us, whenever they felt comfortable.
In a few months, the Parkland shooting was in February.
This probably would have been early summer.
I remember the girls were still in school, so I'm thinking it was like in June.
We had a conversation with this family.
They were expressing their grief.
And how hard it was for them and they were expressing the trauma that they were feeling from what happened to their daughter.
And I could see ourselves in them.
They were just reiterating so many of the same things.
And it helped me remember what it was like to be in their shoes.
What it was like six years earlier to feel what they were feeling.
And I just remember how empty that is.
And how you have no energy.
And you don't want to make any decision.
You just want time to grieve.
It's really, really sacred.
Grief should be sacred.
Grief should be something that transforms you as a person and ultimately make you better.
You see the world completely differently.
And I saw them there.
And as they were describing that, I was so happy for them because that's what they were getting to experience.
And then, The father started talking about stuff that was being said online about them.
And the mother said, this is really horrible.
He had given an interview to somebody on the news.
And the next day, people were posting stuff about him.
And they were calling this a fake event, a false flag event.
And they kept showing videos of my husband, and she goes, I don't think you guys had to deal with that, but this is really hard for us.
And it was almost like one of those dark humor laughs where it's like I chuckle like, no, I know exactly what you're talking about.
Let me stop you right there, Robbie.
Do you know what Alex Jones said about the Parkland shooting?
From things that I saw, it was a lot of the same playbook.
Well, why don't we pull up Page 89 and 90 from the deposition that Alex Jones gave in this case on April 5th, 2022. Question, you did say it with respect to the Florida shooting, that at least some of the high school students were crisis actors.
You did say that, right?
Answer, no.
What I said was that they were in the acting club.
Question.
Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones, is it your testimony that you never called any of the students who went to Parkland crisis actors?
Answer.
I believe that is the term I used.
He called you an actor too, didn't he?
Yes.
This is the same.
I say it's the same playbook.
He's doing it.
He's doing it again.
And so after you had that conversation with those parents who lost a child, is that when you finally decided to is that when you finally decided to see if there was something you could do?
That conversation was a big catalyst for me in the sense that, like I said, I was seeing so many things about my own life through them.
And when we got to this point of them starting to talk about the harassment that they were receiving and how much it bothered them, It broke open this gate that I had kept everything behind.
And all of my emotions of all the stuff that I had been protecting my family from, I finally let myself feel it fully.
And because of them sharing what they felt, I finally tasted really just how atrocious it was.
And just how bitter it is to have to deal with this when all you want to do is grieve.
And I saw them and I'm like, they don't have the energy to deal with this.
Nor should they have to deal with this.
I'm six years down the road.
I know more about this than they do.
I have more perspective than they do.
There's something I can do for them.
I can fight this.
I can stand up.
And I don't need to be quiet anymore.
And I can say something and I can fight this.
Robbie, is that why you've been looking forward to being here in this courtroom?
Exactly.
You recall Ian Hockley's testimony?
How somebody had left a, just when he was out shopping, had left a card on his windshield?
I was here for that, yeah.
Had you ever heard that before?
No, he had never shared that with me.
Let's pull up Exit 473, which is in evidence.
That's a little still screen from the video that Mr. Jones played over and over, right?
That's right.
Left on a car 3,000 miles away from where you lived on the windshield of another parent who lost their child in San Diego.
That's right.
And even as this trial has been happening, are you aware whether Mr. are you aware whether Mr. Jones has continued to ridicule you from Texas?
I've been made aware of that.
There's been people telling me about that.
You're aware of a video that he published just earlier this week entitled, Abomination of Justice, referring to what's happening in this courtroom?
Yeah, I saw that video.
Did Mr. Jones publish to his audience a video in which he showed you sitting here in the courtroom and described you as shaking with fear in the presence of Alex Jones?
Yes, that's what I saw.
Let me put it in here.
No questions, Jake.
You may step back, sir.
I'll just watch your stuff.
Take it home.
Thank you.
What we'd like to do now is play the video deposition testimony of Rob Do.
Alright, you'll recall my earlier instructions about video deposition testimony and the same rules apply.
To the extent there are any objections stated, you'll ignore the objection and you may listen to the response.
Your Honor, may I ask, we've conferred and we have actually an agreed upon instruction regarding Alright,
so you may have noticed that some of the videotaped depositions have been cut down from their full length and you may wonder why that is.
Depositions are often many hours long.
In addition, what is covered in a deposition may duplicate evidence that you've already heard through live witnesses or through another deposition.
Therefore, the parties may edit the video playback of a deposition to shorten it.
you should draw no inferences for or against either party based on the fact that short segments of a deposition are played rather than the whole deposition.
Ron, give that back to Attorney Maddie.
Mr. Dewitt, please raise your right hand.
Do you swear the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Yes.
Mr. D, my name is Chris Maddy, and I represent the plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought against free speech systems, Alex Jones, and others here in Connecticut on behalf of families who lost loved ones at Sandy Hook and one and others here in Connecticut on behalf of families who lost loved ones at Sandy Hook and one first responder to Sandy Hook Do you understand that?
I understand that.
You have been with Alex Jones since 2009, and a large part of your job involved covering the news of the day, correct?
Correct.
Care to say you were among the senior employees of free speech systems?
Yes.
You reported directly to Alex Jones, correct?
Mm-hmm.
You were one of the employees with the most authority within free speech systems other than Alex Jones when you say that's fair.
I don't know.
Authority, yeah.
And you were in daily contact with Mr. Jones really throughout most of your employment and free speech systems, correct?
Correct.
And then you also flew up to Connecticut for Mr. Jones' deposition here, correct?
Correct.
And on this particular occasion when you flew up for his deposition, you and Mr. Jones flew up in a private jet, correct?
That is correct.
And you didn't pay for your travel, lodging, and food during that trip, correct?
Correct.
Alright.
I want to ask you some questions about Dan the Donny.
You know Dan the Donny, correct?
I do.
He was hired by Pre-Speech Systems in 2012, right? - Correct. - And after reviewing this footage and seeing Mr. Badani's conduct and the conduct of the individuals with him, you brought him on for an interview, correct? - Yes. correct? - Yes. - All right.
And then not only that, you then sent him back up to Connecticut the next month in July, Is there video footage of that too?
Showing you exhibit 37. You see here an email exchange you have with Mr. Badani.
And I'll scroll to the bottom so you can see it.
Where Mr. Badani is asking you whether he can do it And so,
as of July 7th, you're still instructing Mr. Badani to go to Connecticut on Informor's behalf, correct?
Yes.
Showing you Exhibit 39. Here, Yes.
You were giving Mr. Badani access to InfoWars' largest Ustream channel, correct?
Correct.
So that he could livestream his coverage of the Halving-Newtown hearing, correct?
Correct.
Mr. Zhu, do you recall that toward the end of 2013, the state's attorney responsible In 2013?
Correct.
I don't know if I recall that or not.
I'm going to show you the email that I will mark as if it's 61. I
see that.
Okay.
Did you read that report when it came out?
I don't remember reading that report when it came out.
I mean, I get a lot of emails.
And in November of 2013, the state's attorney responsible for investigating the circumstances of that shooting released his report.
And we just saw an email in which you were sent a cop, correct?
Okay, yeah.
And your testimony is that you didn't read it?
I don't know if I read it when that guy sent it to me.
I might have read it later.
I don't know.
Don't read it at all.
As you sit here today, you have no recollection of having read the state's attorney's report of his investigation on the circumstances surrounding the city of shooting, correct?
Correct.
Don't you think that that would have been a source of information that you would have wanted to consult if you were interested in the facts and circumstances surrounding the shooting?
Objection.
I don't know what I was thinking at the time.
That concludes Mr. Ju's testimony.
I think it's alright with the court.
Maybe we can take our morning break.
I think that's a good idea.
So we will take a 15 minute morning recess.
Ron will be in charge of your notepads and we will see you shortly.
All right.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Please be seated.
Attorney Mattis, do you see what I circled on that?
On the instructions?
Well, I know you wanted me to read it, but I didn't think you wanted me to read it.
Wasn't sure.
Okay, ready for the jury?
Do you want to show Attorney Patti so he doesn't, so he knows what we're talking about I don't have any ex-parte communications.
That's all.
So after yesterday when I was taking the afternoon recess in the morning, I did a double take to make sure it wasn't me.
I guess we all read it and saw what we wanted to see.
Exactly.
Okay, welcome back.
You'll need to count to nine.
Please be seated, make yourselves comfortable again.
and council will stipulate that our entire panel has returned Yes, Your Honor.
Attorney Koskoff, you're calling the next witness.
Yes, we call Matthew Soto.
Thank you, Your Honor.
Good morning, good morning.
Watch your step here.
Just remain standing and Mr. Farrell will swear you in. - With your right hand, Mr. Farrell, Mr. Farrell says in your front that the evidence you show here concerning this case shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing of the truth.
So I'll be going to have more time.
I don't see a person. - Yes. - Thank you.
Thank you.
You're seated.
Just need you to state your name, slowly spelling your last name for the record, and the state and county you want to do that.
So Matthew Soto, his name is S-O-T-O. I live at 158 Nolton Street, Stratford, Connecticut.
And there's water there if you'd like any water, you help yourself.
And just try to keep your voice up if you don't mind, as much as you can, okay?
Whenever you're ready, turn your class up.
Matthew, thank you for being here.
I understand we've taken you from the classroom, is that right?
Yes.
Can you tell the jury what you do?
I'm a high school English teacher in this record.
Okay.
And you've been in class, you've been teaching class all week.
Okay.
And you put in for a day off here.
Is that right?
Yes, I did.
Okay.
And Matthew, first, can you settle a big mystery in this case, which is what was your date of birth?
July 26, 1997. Okay.
And so as of December of 2012, that would have made you 15?
Yes.
And...
Can you tell the jury where you fit in in the whole Soto clan?
I am the baby.
I'm the last of four.
And I'm the only boy.
Alright, you seem to enjoy that, from what I can tell.
And can you just tell us a little bit about your older sister was Vicki, is that right?
And Carly and Julian?
Yes.
Vicki was my older sister.
She was the oldest.
She was 12 years older than me when I was born.
So there was a significant age difference, but that never got in the way.
She was more of like my second mother.
Alright, and can you just explain to the jury a little bit more about what you mean by that?
Vicki always knew she wanted to be a teacher, so if I ever needed help with assignments growing up, she would always help me with those.
If I ever wanted someone just to watch a movie with, we would sit and binge the Harry Potter movies over and over and over, and then she finally introduced me to the books, which I fell in love with as well.
Did you tell the jury what type of teacher you are?
Yeah, I'm a high school English teacher.
I thought I heard you say that in the books.
Was Vicki instrumental in your interest in becoming an English teacher?
She definitely was.
One of the first stories I ever remember was Harry Potter, and I always stuck with it, and that was because I grew up watching the movies with my sister.
Before I could read the books, we were watching everything, so I already knew what was going on, so that hooked me to the stories, which is now partially why I'm an English teacher.
And what about Carly and Julian?
Were they also second mothers?
I noticed you didn't call They weren't necessarily second mothers.
Carly was five years older than me, so we fought a lot growing up.
We had the lovely sibling relationship where we kind of just bickered back and forth, and kind of the same thing with Jillian, too.
Okay.
And so, can you tell us, give us any anecdotes or stories that can help the three understand the relationship that you had with Vicki?
When I was 13, we were learning about a sled dog or a dog named Balto in the school.
And I remember just being fascinated by the story.
And Vicki knew that there was a statue of Balto in Central Park.
So for Christmas that year, she took me to Central Park.
And in the probably 20 to 30 degrees, we walked all around Central Park trying to find the statue, not knowing how big the park actually was.
So it took us a few hours, but she didn't stop until we found it because she knew it was a connection from school that she could also join in on, and she was always wanting to be an educator, so anything that she could take from my classroom experience to bring it to her and to bring it to something that we could do, she would try to do.
And did she bring the whole family along for that?
No, that was just a me and her day.
A special day?
It was a very special day.
So what year would that have been?
The juries heard a lot, of course, about December of 2012. That was probably 2007, 2008. So you would have been about 11?
Is that right?
Yes.
And did she do those types of things often with you?
Yes.
She never really liked buying me gifts.
We always did experiences instead because she always wanted to have a full day with me instead of just giving me something that would last like an hour or two.
And did you look up to Vicki in any way?
Yes.
Because she was 12 years older, she She just had everything together.
She was the one that was always the perfect child, always the one that never really got into trouble, versus my other sisters.
So I followed her example, not necessarily my other sisters' examples.
So I looked up to her for pretty much everything.
I just should remind you that your other sisters, I think, are in the courtroom.
Yes, they are.
Now, was there teaching in the family?
How did the teaching gene in the family start?
My aunt has been a teacher for all of her life, and I think Vicki was definitely influenced by my aunt and then influenced by other teachers that she had growing up.
She knew she wanted to be a teacher from, I don't even know, I was too young to remember back then.
Okay.
And there came a time when Vicki got her degree and started teaching, is that right?
Yes.
And we know that she was teaching at first grade at Sandy Hook as of December 14, 2012. Can you tell us, from your experience as her younger brother, much younger, a little bit about how that came to be, how long she had been teaching and that kind of thing?
So she had just graduated from college and was trying to find a job somewhere.
Being a teacher back then was very difficult, so she applied, I believe, everywhere across the state of Connecticut and finally heard something which was 45 minutes from our house.
She gladly accepted a long-term subposition for two years.
So she was not in a classroom of her own for two years.
She finally, on the third year, was offered a position, I think the week before school started.
So that was a process for the family because she had to set up her classroom.
And she had been collecting things for Years.
So it was, let's go in the cubbyhole, let's break out everything she had possibly saved, every book, every little side table, every bookshelf, anything that she knew she was going to put in her classroom one day when she had it.
So it was us frantically setting up and bringing everything up to Newtown.
When you say, first of all, what year was this, Matthew?
This would have been 2009-2010.
Okay, the 2009-2010 school year?
School year?
School year, yes.
Okay.
So how long, okay, so, and so when you say everybody had to head out over to Newtown, can you just describe that experience?
It was me, I think my sister, and my cousin, Zach.
We all went and then there were things that she would bring home to help us, like if there were things that she had laminated that she needed to cut out, or any little name tag, things like that, she would bring home and it would be the family's responsibility.
Okay, and so the first, so she had very little advance notice about this opportunity and she grabbed it?
Yes, I think she was called on either like a Thursday or Friday and school started the following week on like a Wednesday or Thursday.
So it was less than a week that she had to prepare.
Did she give you any choice other than to help?
Oh, no.
No, there wasn't really a question.
It was a, we're all going to set up this weekend.
You're coming, right?
Okay.
And did that become a tradition for you and your sister to help set up her classroom?
It did.
We had gone to her classroom for several years after that, and we had helped set up every year.
We had gone and helped change bulletin boards, changed out kids' names for different things.
And so the next year you helped to set up your sister's classrooms.
The next year I can remember cutting out letters and her bulletin board said, chicka chicka boom boom look who's new in our room.
And I can remember sitting in the staff faculty room cutting out those letters when I was probably 13, 14. And did there come a time, in 2012, Did something happen that required all hands on deck again?
Yes.
She had gotten an opportunity to move her classroom, so she was no longer down the hall.
She was closer to the front of the building.
And when did she, so prior to the calendar year, or prior to the school year starting in the fall of 2012, Vicki was able to move her classroom to the classroom that she was in on December 14, 2012?
Yes.
And that was closer to the front?
And did you help her with that move?
Yes.
Again, any choice in the matter?
Oh, no.
Not at all.
It was a being voluntold kind of situation.
Voluntold?
Yes.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Where you're not volunteering.
You're just told to do something.
Okay.
I wonder if we could call up 554. This is for ID. There's no objection, as I understand it.
That's correct, Judge.
Thank you.
Is it 554 or 44?
I believe it's 554.
Oh, that's the wrong one.
Well, that's also, that's 553, but we'll show both of these.
This is Vicki.
What is going on here?
This was Crazy Hair Day.
So she worked in elementary school that did Spirit Week quite often, and she was the teacher who went all out.
So at 6 o'clock in the morning, she was in the bathroom with a soda bottle and a lot of gel, and she maneuvered her hair up to that and then drove the 45 minutes with her head halfway out the window.
She did anything she could to get a smile from those kids, and she knew that the minute they saw her hair like that, they would just love it.
Sorry.
Okay.
And can we show 554?
work.
So this was on Mix Match Day.
So she had gone in, I think that's a flamingo button-down robe type of situation, and then a dress on top with some Funky leg warmers on the bottom, bows in her hair.
She had every pattern she could possibly have on just to impress the kids and to make sure that she was dubbed the fun teacher.
Because she always wanted to be the fun, cool teacher and have students look up to her in that way.
And did this type of approach, this type of energy to teaching, did that also inspire you to become a teacher?
It did.
Are you as fun?
I try to be.
I definitely don't think I can hold a candle to her, but I try to be with my students.
Okay.
Matthew, I have to turn to a sad subject, which is just a little December 14, 2012. I just want to ask you a few questions.
And that is, the first question is, that weekend coming up, did the family have any plans?
And if so, can you tell the jury about those?
We did have plans.
As a family, we always loved doing things, and it was around the holidays, so we wanted to do something for the holiday.
And we had heard that the Yankee Candle Factory in Massachusetts has a huge holiday expo where they set up a whole bunch of things.
So as a family, we were planning to go up there for the weekend.
And was this an annual pilgrimage or just something new?
Just a random family day.
And can you tell us about the way that Vicki approached holidays?
She went all out in terms of Christmas.
Christmas, it was...
Probably not even November, and she had Michael Bublé blasting no matter what.
It was always his Christmas album.
She was the one that was in charge of taking out our Christmas tree.
Me being the youngest, I always had my opinions, but I never got the tree because it was always her decision.
She was always the one, the first on the mountain looking for the tree, the first one to say, this is the one that we're going home with, someone else cut it down now.
So it was, holidays were always...
Did she have people for that?
Is that basic?
Yeah, she had her family to cut it down.
And then I remember it was October of 2011. We had just gotten a Nor'easter, and she was going back to school on that Monday, but she had to get a pumpkin for her classroom because they were doing an activity, and she was panicked because there was like a We had just gotten a nor'easter, but she needed a pumpkin because she told her students that they were going to have one in class.
And so we trekked out to Joan's Pumpkin Patch and in the snow we had to pick pumpkins for her classroom.
Okay.
And so the plan had been on that weekend to go to the Yankee, what is it called?
Yankee Candle Factory.
Okay.
We know that those plans obviously changed.
Your sisters have brought us through what was going on, and if it's okay with you, I'm not going to go into detail about that.
But maybe you could just tell us, you talked about Michael Buble in the spirit.
Did there come a time when somebody picked up Vicki's car?
Yes, my my uncle Jim was told that her car was still in the lot at Sandy Hook and that someone had to come pick it up and so he volunteered for the task and when he got in the car he told us that Michael Buble was blasting as loud as her radio would have it and it was the CD that she had.
That's the kind of thing when you leave your Stereo on, stereo car, car stereo on loud.
You turn the car off and then you turn it back on.
It resumed right where it was playing.
Now did there come a time and again your sisters really, despite whatever misgivings you might have about them, covered a lot of ground, but did there come covered a lot of ground, but did there come a time when, Matthew, that you became aware of this
of lies that were being spread, told about your family as being actors, as part of a hoax, as part of Conspiracy.
Things like your sister never existed.
So several days, I think it was the weekend after Sandy Hook, the president came to Newtown and met with all the families and then had a press conference where he said that my sister was a hero.
And I remember posting on Facebook being 15, thinking that I was only posting to my like 30 friends that I had, but somehow the post was shared like 900 times and it had like 40,000 likes and Going through those comments, there was comments on that post saying that I wasn't real, saying that she wasn't real, and that my family wasn't real.
And that was the weekend after.
And as a 15-year-old, I had no idea how to process that or how to deal with that.
So when you say likes, because we have different generations in this courtroom, were they all people who were liking things, or were they different?
No, this was before Facebook had the multiple options for like the dislike or the hate comment or anything like that.
So it was them engaging with the post so they can share it to their followers.
Did you put that post on because you were proud?
I did.
I had no idea where it would go.
I thought I was only talking to my friends and I thought I was expressing how I just felt hearing someone in a very powerful position call my sister a hero.
Was it comforting to hear the president call your sister a hero?
At a time when I imagine it must be terribly grieving.
It was.
Was that comforting to you?
It was.
And did that temporarily at least help you confront your grief?
The President's comments?
It did momentarily.
From that moment till today, has that type of thing ever gone away?
The type of things that you were exposed to way back in the day or two after the shooting?
Sustained.
Have you continued, Matthew, for the last nearly 10 years to receive harassment, be exposed to the infection of these lies, told by Alex Jones?
Yes.
Yes.
Has it ever gone away?
No.
Anytime there's another shooting or anytime someone says something, our social medias are flooded with another batch of comments.
And if that happens every time there's a shooting, that happens about every six months in America?
A little bit more frequently than that.
Now, can you tell the jury You were following in your sister's footsteps and you pursued an education in education, is that right?
Can you tell the jury about that?
I went to Southern Connecticut State University and pursued a bachelor's in English and education for the last few years.
I graduated two years ago.
Okay, and along the way in your education, sorry, how many years total do you have to put in to get that degree?
Four to five.
Okay.
And have you encountered people affected by the Alex Jones lies across along the way of your education?
Are you commanded?
I don't think so, Judge.
Overruled.
Yes.
And I would say it started before I even went to college.
Can you tell the jury about that?
When I was still in high school, I was 15 when it happened, so I was a sophomore.
And I remember going back to school, I believe it was early January of 2013, and I was in the cafeteria and someone came up to me and said, are you real?
Is your family real?
Did your sister really die?
And I can remember just staring at them and not knowing how to respond because I was at school.
I wasn't supposed to be dealing with this here.
I was supposed to be amongst friends, amongst peers, amongst people in Stratford that knew my sister, knew that she had walked the same halls that they're in, had known that she was real.
But this was someone at my school Asking something so personal that they shouldn't have been asking.
I remember I went down, I don't even remember what I said to the person, but I went down to my guidance counselor's office and I sat in his office and I had a panic attack for hours.
And I can just remember him telling me, Just trying to distract me about anything and telling me a story about how a bear had gotten into his garbage the night before just to try to distract me from thinking about the fact that my peers are questioning whether or not my family is real, whether or not I'm real.
And that stayed with me and I had a very hard time continuing school.
I had to spend most of sophomore year and junior year homeschooled because I was afraid that something like that would happen again.
How long has your family been in the community of Stratford?
All our lives.
Does it date back to...
It dates before Vicki.
I think my mom and dad settled in Stratford probably almost 40 years ago.
40?
Mm-hmm.
And you consider Stratford home, your home?
Yes.
It's your community, isn't it?
Yes.
Yes, it is.
And that was your school?
Mm-hmm.
They were high school, right?
Mm-hmm.
I probably should say yes or no.
Yes, it was my high school.
And this was after Vicki died, obviously, right?
Yes.
And so you went back to school after Vicki died, yes?
Yes.
And then this happened?
Yes.
Was this the same year of the shooting?
Yes, it was.
It was in January of 2013. Was it hard for you to go back to school after the shooting?
Yes, it was.
I've been diagnosed since with PTSD and I was fearful of being in a classroom environment after everything had happened because I was just constantly waiting for it to happen there.
And when you finally mustered up the courage to go back, did you feel...
Comfortable enough to do that?
No.
I still wasn't comfortable to go back, but I knew I had to go back at some point.
So you were vulnerable at that time.
So that was high school, and at some point did you manage to go back to school, high school, and finish high school?
I did.
I went back my senior year and was able to finish full-time.
Okay.
And then you, did there come any other instances in your education in which you were exposed or had to confront somebody infected with the Alex Jones lies?
Yes.
When I was at Southern, I was in a History 101 class, and the first day, the professor was going over the syllabus, going over what we had been covering, and got to the topic of media, and got to the topic of current events, and he asked the question, how many of you think Sandy Hook actually happened?
And I was sitting in the room.
And I had a panic attack immediately because I saw my classmates raise their hand and not everyone raised their hand.
So I knew I was sitting in a room with people that thought that I wasn't real, that my sister wasn't real.
And I got up and I left and I dropped out of that class.
and it was a very hard thing for me to go back to school even that week.
Was this your first year of college?
No, this is my second year of college.
Second year of college.
So this would have been in what year?
2017, 2018.
And this may seem like a trivial question in a lot of ways it is, but you had paid for that.
Yes.
And did you get reimbursed or no?
No.
It was past the point where I could get reimbursed for the class.
I dropped it and lost the money and didn't get credit.
But you were able to go back to school and get your degree?
I was.
I was able to take that class over again with a different professor and passed it.
Can you describe for the jury how, if the exposure over these, going on 10 years to this kind of, the lies and the people infected by Alex Jones' the lies and the people infected by Alex Jones' lies, what that's done to you, how do you explain the changes that you've had to...
Sorry, you kind of tripped me up with this stuff.
Can you just explain to the jury whether you've changed, you think, in response to all of this?
I definitely think that I've changed.
At the beginning, I didn't know that my words had power, and I saw that with my post.
That kind of got a lot of likes and got attention for somewhat the wrong reason.
After I saw that, I immediately changed all privacy settings, immediately hunkered down on all social medias.
Didn't let that part out into the world.
There are still times where if people will ask me about Vicky, I'll deny that I'm her brother or I just won't answer because I don't know who they are.
There are times where we have a successful 5K that we've been going on for 10 years now and we have a lot of shirts that we have and they all say her name on it and I don't like even wearing those shirts out in public anymore because I don't know who's going to see it and who's going to say something to me about it.
and I don't know if they're going to say something nice or if they're going to be mean about it.
Has it affected your comfort in meeting new people in social situations?
It has, and especially with me being a teacher, it's one of my biggest fears that my students will Google me and see things like this and bring those questions into the classroom.
I think your students are lucky to have you.
Thank you.
No further questions.
Profit examination, attorney Patis.
Thank you.
How are you?
Good, how are you?
You met a while ago.
I had a chance to take your decision.
And I learned a little bit about the power of your words there, didn't I?
You testified before Congress, I believe?
No.
In Washington, is it a rally?
Yes.
Urging gun control?
Gun violence prevention, yes.
And with others who had been involved, been victimized by the shooting in San Diego, correct?
No, this was with Parkland students.
So the Parkland shooting came, and you traveled to Washington, Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
He is someone that grew up in Newtown.
No.
Someone else that grew up in Newtown.
No.
But in any case, you appeared at a rally and you spoke on behalf of sensible gun control, in effect, correct?
Yes.
I don't necessarily think it came from my personal tragedy.
I just didn't necessarily express the views beforehand.
As you sit here today, do you know whether Mr. Jones has a position on gun violence or gun regulation?
I do not.
Nothing further, Jen.
Anything further?
No, thank you, nothing.
All right, you may step down and watch your staff take your time.
time.
Can I see counsel on the sidebar?
I was going to ask for a second.
I was going to ask for a second part as well.
I didn't know what we wanted to do, so we can have 40 minutes.
I think that would be enough.
Is that enough time?
Yeah.
The reason I wanted to come to the sidebar is because I think, given the court's ruleings, the sequence in which Attorney Pattis is asking these questions is reversed.
The only relevance, as I understand it, as to this line of questioning that the Court has considered is if they are exaggerating their injuries because they're biased, if they don't have I don't have to accept their answer.
I could show them, I could go through showing in the videos, and so I think I'm in...
- You know what I mean?
- He doesn't have to rule, or I'm watching him.
- It's okay for now, because it's gonna happen.
- I don't think it matters.
- He's gonna detect things that we address through the pepper charge.
- Are you talking?
- That's what I'm gonna do.
- Do you have somebody for the next vote?
- Yeah, yeah. - I wanna be able to finish.
And then I'm going to start.
- And the one that will start.
Can I just ask, what am I going to do next week?
Do you expect them to please next week?
Oh, by the way, excuse me for a second, Judge.
Would you take the heat for fostering that around tomorrow so they don't pay the jury knows it's not going to next week?
Sure.
Go ahead.
Visit my daughter, I see.
She's expecting her advantage.
That's great.
What are we doing here?
Get the hell out of here.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I would imagine that we have a most extraordinary courage during the district synthesis.
I'm sorry, I can tell them that.
We expect that the evidence will be done next week, and we expect a close.
I think that's a good thing.
I don't want one of us to make our benefit yet, but certainly that means we're going to have this time for the next weekend.
I think you're going to have, you know, you're, I'm sorry, you're, sorry.
No, no, no, I just want to, if we finish with this next witness, and we have a little time before 1 o'clock, we may be able to squeeze in another deposition video.
So I just want to make sure we can go right up to one.
Okay.
I would love to relate to one.
Okay.
All right.
So we're just discussing.
It looks like we'll be able to present evidence right up to the lunch hour.
And then as I said, you'll be excused until last day.
Oh, sorry.
We called Donna Soda.
Okay.
Well.
Oh, go ahead.
Sorry.
Good afternoon.
I'm sure you wouldn't say just watch your step here.
Take your time.
You can drop your own water, but certainly feel free to refill if you need it.
And if you don't mind standing up in the hall, please do your right hand.
Soundly swear, sincerely affirm that the evidence you shall give concerning this place shall be the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
So help you God, work not from the virgin.
Yes.
Be seated.
I just need you to state your name, slowly spelling your last name for the record, and then state and county that you live.
Donna Soto, SOTO, Fairfield County, Connecticut.
Thank you.
You may inquire.
Um, hi Donna.
Hi Josh.
Can you, uh, can you tell the jury, um, did you say your date of birth?
I did not.
Do you not want to do that?
It's okay.
6-23-59.
Okay.
Um, and, uh, you are, you are the mother of four children as we understand it?
Four amazing children, yes.
And you were here during, were you here during all of their testimony?
Yes.
And did you take time off of your work to be here for their testimony?
Can you just tell the jury where you were born and raised?
I was born and raised in Stratford, Connecticut.
Stratford's your home.
Have you ever left Stratford?
No.
Ever?
I've left Stratford.
I've always lived in Stratford.
You've always lived in Stratford.
Okay.
Were your parents from Connecticut or Stratford?
My mother was.
My father was from Philadelphia, but his grandparents lived here.
In Stratford?
In Stratford.
And you have education beyond high school?
Yes.
By the way, did you go to Stratford High School?
I did.
Is that what it's called?
Yes.
Okay.
Is that the high school that Matthew was just talking about?
Yes.
Okay.
So that was your high school also?
High school both my parents went to and all my children.
Okay.
And after you went to Stratford High School, can you tell the jury what you did?
I first became a licensed practical nurse.
I then became a registered nurse and I have my bachelor's of science in nursing.
And I work at a local hospital as a nurse case manager supervisor.
Currently?
Currently.
And is it your preference not to say the name of the hospital?
I work at Bridgeport Hospital.
Okay.
And for how long have you been at First Court Hospital?
Since 1977. The year I graduated high school, I started there as a nurse's aide and went through the ranks and now I'm a supervisor of the case management department.
Okay.
And in terms of your...
Are you full-time?
Have you been full-time since you...
I've been full-time my entire career.
In addition to raising your four children?
Yes.
And you were married and you're divorced?
Yes.
Okay.
And can you tell the jury a little bit about...
We saw some pictures of your daughter, Vicki.
Can you just tell the jury a little bit about Vicki and...
Give us more of a sense of who she was.
She was a very special person.
When I was pregnant with Vicki, I knew she was a girl.
Back then, you didn't have ultrasounds, and you didn't get to find out beforehand, but I just knew she was a girl.
I just knew.
Mother's intuition, I guess.
I just knew she was a girl, and I wanted a girl so badly.
I did.
I did.
And she was just the perfect little angel when she was born.
Her sister was born three years later.
But Vicki was always, and my kids will say it, the perfect child.
She never got into trouble.
She was always responsible.
There's things she did that I didn't know about, I'm sure, as she got older, but I always called her, or she always called herself the perfect child.
She always told me I should have stopped after one.
She had that kind of relationship with her brother and sisters that, you know, you should have stopped at one, Mom.
But her and I, we had a close relationship.
I cried my eyes out when she went to college.
When my second went to college, I was happy that she went to college.
But when Vicki was 15, her and I took a trip to Italy.
Our hospital used to offer these trips at a discounted rate, and Vicki and I went to Italy for about 10 days.
She was 15 at the time.
Italy is a lot of historic buildings.
We went to the Vatican.
We had an audience with the Pope.
She was less than interested in a lot of it.
I don't know if I should say this, but I think she saw more naked men on that trip because of the statues in Italy.
They were just all over the place.
She was only 15. She had a lot of questions.
Or a lot of answers.
Yeah, she had a lot of questions.
I remember we were somewhere in Italy.
And some boy was calling to her, Bella, Bella, because she was just such a pretty girl.
And I treasure those memories that I have.
So we know she set the bar pretty high, it sounds like, on education and things like that?
Oh, she certainly did.
She knew she wanted to be a teacher since she was three.
She looked up to her aunt, who she was very close with.
She was the first granddaughter.
My sister and I were very close, and she really looked up to her aunt Debbie, who was a teacher.
She always knew she wanted to be a teacher.
She collected books.
She went off to Eastern State College in Willimantic, which is a liberal arts college.
She excelled there.
She got a dual major.
Up until the time she died, She always would tell her siblings that she has two degrees and nobody else can match that.
And nobody else has.
And we heard about, we saw a picture of some crazy hair and also some less crazy hair, but can you tell us about what your What that's all about.
That was so Vicki.
And, no, all my four children lived at home at the time of the shooting.
They all lived with me in the house that they grew up in.
But, you know, in addition to those two pictures, I think, I don't know what day it was.
Erica Lafferty might remember, but she wore her prom dress, which was a big, huge, poofy, pink dress.
And she wore the skirt to school for one of those days.
And she just, she loved being a teacher.
She loved her kids.
You know, we would sit on the patio, as my son said, and cut out letters.
We'd help her with her papers, and she would just talk about each of the kids and how much, you know, there were some that probably drove her crazy, and she would tell us about that too, but she loved being a teacher.
She told us once, she had mentioned in class that she lives at Target, and one little boy came up to her and said, You live at Target?
And she was kind of just saying that she goes there all the time.
But I think the love was very mutual with her students.
And to this day, the graduating class in Newtown this year all had Vicki.
And they sent me a picture of the kids that graduated this year.
That were in her class.
when she was a first year, first grade teacher.
So it would have been 2009-10 school year.
And they graduated this year.
And another teacher from Sandy Hook got them all together and took a picture.
And sent it to me.
After the shooting, I'm not going to ask you about this weekend and Friday, but I need to ask you some questions, just a few about your exposure.
Sure.
Give us examples of, first of all, did there come a time when you became targeted or your family became targeted by people infected with these lies of Alex Jones?
um yes very early on and you know now when I think back um Vicki's wake was held in Stratford and um there was more than 4 000 people that came to the wake um it lasted hours and hours and hours after it was supposed to and um the lines were just wrapped around the blocks and We had people
that were canvassing, the people that were there, just to make sure nobody was taking pictures.
We had security that I hadn't thought about.
My cousin thought about having security there.
And I remember the day she was buried on the 19th, me and my children were in the limousine, and we were pulling out of the driveway, and there was a man taking pictures.
And I remember, like, just my motherly instinct, I guess, I just wanted to get out of that limousine and go after him.
And, you know, somebody did go after him.
And, you know, it was very disheartening that As other parents have said, when you're trying to grieve, this was such a public tragedy.
We couldn't grieve on our own.
And there was cameras all over the church.
They weren't on the lawn of the church.
They weren't allowed.
But people allowed them on their grass near our church.
And shortly after that is when it was brought to our attention that there was fake Facebook pages in Vicki's name.
And they were all fake.
They were all people that questioned if she had lived, if we were real, if we were actors.
Some of them had profile pictures that were like with Halloween masks on, those white Halloween masks.
And we started getting the comments on Facebook.
We had a memorial page set up for her because we have a memorial and we would get the comments constantly and you know I would I remember I was up at night and just reading through these comments and um one night a friend or one night somebody messaged me and um she seemed like a really kind person and said do you need help with this social media and I said and I don't know why I you know You're
in shock for so long afterwards.
I don't know why, but I said yes.
And it turns out now she's a very good friend of ours.
She's been in the courtroom a couple times.
And she helped me and our family get all these pages.
There was 25 Facebook pages with Vicki's name on it.
Um, with lies.
Just hopesters and just lies about Vicki, our foundation, our family.
They had family pictures that I had taken, um, of my kids that they questioned every piece.
You know, why is his leg going that way?
Why is her hair going this way?
They just tore apart these pictures and they were all over online.
Um, And Ryan is her name, and she helped us get all these 25 pages down.
Facebook did remove every single one of them.
We still have a memorial page for Vicki that we monitor very closely.
Ryan is an administrator and she monitors, my son monitors.
Just last Sunday, we had a man come on and say, Haven't you made enough off these dead kids yet?
And that was last Sunday.
So, you know, it's almost 10 years now.
And we're still getting these messages.
And we get them often.
We have filters.
And, you know, Ryan catches them pretty quick, so I don't see them anymore.
But early on, there was just hundreds of comments.
How...
Pages that sprung up or came out of these lies.
How quickly did that seem to happen?
I met Ryan early January 2013, so it was very quick.
So by January 2013, there were at least 25 of these different?
Yes.
And did each of these sites have, I don't know what they call them, followers?
Yes, they had followers.
They're called friends, I guess.
And, you know, the comments just were never-ending.
You mentioned the...
I wanted to give you a chance to talk about the Foundation.
The Juries heard a lot about the Foundation.
They heard about what's happened at the Foundation, but they've also heard A little bit about the good the Foundation does, and I was wondering if you could describe this generally first what it is, and then we'll show the website, okay?
We have, when we wrote Vicki's obituary, we were advised to put donations to something.
So we put donations to the Vicki Soto Memorial Fund, and we hadn't even established it yet, but shortly thereafter we did establish.
It's a non-profit.
And we focus on education.
Vicki was huge into education and she was a lover of books.
She just, she collected books for Easter and Christmas and her birthday and she amassed this huge library and she was so proud of that library that she had in school.
One of our big regrets was we never got any of her library back.
They were all contaminated with, obviously, blood from the shooting.
So we never got any of her books back, and that really tore us up in the beginning.
But our foundation started by giving our two local high schools, seniors that were going into the field of education, a $5,000 scholarship.
We did our Stratford High and Bunnell High, which are the two high schools in Stratford.
And then the next year we branched out, or I think it was two years we branched out, and we gave a Connecticut recipient and a national recipient.
So we give four $5,000 scholarships every year.
And they're renewable for the entire four years of their college if they're in good standing, which they all are because my children and I and other members of our family select the recipients and we look for people that I can't think of the word,
that remind us of Vicki and the qualities she had and the passion she had and the love for life she had.
So we pick such perfect candidates and we have people that, you know, we have many That are now teachers that, you know, send us pictures in their classroom.
And, you know, I was texting one of them last night.
She lives in Florida, just to make sure she was okay.
She was going through the hurricane.
So, you know, we do that.
We, you know, renew those for four years.
We also have Ms. Soto's Literacy Legacy, where we do mentor books multiple times a year to our local K through six schools and we purchase books and we give one to each teacher in Stratford and they do projects around that book.
You know, with the students they, you know, do bulletin boards or I know they've done rock gardens outside of schools.
We have bookcases that we have purchased and put in every school in Stratford and we fill those with books, free books for kids to take.
And we have book drives.
I think one of my children mentioned book drives.
We have people donate books, and we have people come, teachers come, and take books from our office.
And our last book drive, we had over 200 teachers come and just fill bags of books.
Their classroom library.
And we just, you know, I think we said it this last time, Vicki would have been in line.
And when we pulled up to our office that day, there was already a line across our office waiting to get in.
And we said Vicki would have been the first one there to get books for her classroom.
So we just know we're honoring her in such a good way.
Um, aren't you bringing this, aren't you exaggerating your injuries because you want to go after everybody's guns?
No.
Are you sure?
Yes.
That's what we heard.
Um, can we bring up, uh, the Dickie Soto memorial page?
The foundation, sorry.
This is 555, 556. Yeah, I think they're by agreement.
Excuse me, Attorney Farrar, sorry.
It's 555 through 558. These will be PDFs of just the website that we show.
OK.
So this is the landing page?
Yes.
Very colorful.
And this is showing, actually the date coming up is 11-5-22?
Yes, that's our 5K. All right.
And that's the big fundraising event of the year?
Yes.
All right.
Do you have to run or can you also kind of walk quickly?
You can walk.
There's many people that walk.
Okay.
Just in case.
Can you pull up the bottom part of that?
Alright, so this is a place for folks to donate?
Yes.
Now let's go back and just-- and if we could just hit-- you talked about your missions.
Just click on the mission.
This lays out.
Mission of the Vicki Soto Fund is outlined in the following fundamental principles that honor her.
Encourage a love of education by supporting teacher-led initiatives and educator-driven programs.
Lead and implement vital literary needs in our local community and our state.
Enrich student and youth organizations that foster reading, writing, education, and teaching opportunities.
Support future educators' potential By awarding four prestigious, which we were talking about, scholarships annually, and then it talks about the donations.
I didn't see anywhere there that says five take away everybody's guns.
Is that on there?
No.
Okay.
Now, can you go to the next, can you back up for a second?
I'm not going to read all this, A, because I can't, B, because you've spoken so lovely about her legacy.
I'll withdraw it.
Does this describe more of what you were just explaining to the jury about who she was?
Yes, and we do a lot more than I said.
Our local YMCA and library, We spend a lot and donate books to them.
We're always looking for teachers that need books on DonorsChoose.
So our fund is all around education and literacy, locally and nationally.
I need to ask you some questions that are going to sound very technical and are technical, but I hope you bear with me.
As a result of the encounters that you've had with folks infected by the lives of Alex Jones, have you had to increase some security around your house?
We have security cameras around the perimeter of our house, yes.
And did that obviously cost money when they weren't donated?
They were not donated.
Yes, it does cost money, and there's a monthly cost to it as well.
Okay.
And in terms of your, we heard from Jillian that she was anxious about people who were infected by Joan's lies.
And I want to ask you, did there come a time that you're aware that Jillian had to drop out of a class?
Yes.
And did she have to forfeit the tuition as a result?
Yes, she did.
And is it your understanding that she dropped out as a result of her anxiety about being confronted by these people?
Yes.
Okay.
The same question for Carly.
In fact, did Carly, first of all, let me slow down a little bit.
I know we're running out of time.
But did there come a time when you became aware that Carly was so afraid of encountering people infected by Joan's lies that she also dropped out but for an entire semester?
Yes.
And did she have to forfeit money as well?
Yes.
Thank you for the questions.
Attorney Pattis.
Mr. Koskopf asked you some questions about guns.
Who invited you to the White House press conference on gun control?
We were invited on behalf of the President.
That was probably one of four times you met with the President, correct?
I believe so.
Nothing further, Judge.
Anything further?
Nothing further.
You may step down.
Thank you.
and then watch your step.
Your Honor, we're going to play the deposition testimony of David Jones.
And my earlier instructions about viewing deposition testimony or supplies.
Good morning, Mr. Jones.
Good morning.
My name is Chris Vanity.
As I indicated, I represent the families who lost both ones at Sandy Hook, as well as the first responder who responded to Sandy Hook on the day of the shooting.
Where did your deposition be a litigation brought by my clients against Alex Jones, Free Speech Systems?
Did you ever say that?
Yes.
You are Alex Jones' father, correct?
When did you retire from your career as a dentist?
I still have a license In 2013, did you become an employee of Free Speech Systems?
I became indirectly an employee of Free Speech Systems.
Okay.
Why was it indirect?
I had a professional corporation that contracted with large dental practice management groups, and that corporation lost its income when it lost me as an employee.
And so that entity, my professional corporation, was paid lost opportunity fees, and it paid me to be an employee of Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems.
Free Speech Systems paid the corporation that you controlled for lost opportunities as a result of retiring from your dental practice, and that corporation that you controlled then paid you a salary in connection with your work for Free and that corporation that you controlled then paid you a salary in Yes.
Understood.
Why was it arranged that way?
First, purpose of winding down in continuity.
It was probably not important, but it was a reality.
Did it come a time when that arrangement changed and you became an on-the-books employee of Free Speech Systems?
Yes.
When was that?
I believe that was the next year.
Describe for me, from 2013 going forward, what your responsibilities have been at Free Speech Systems.
Largely just to be sure we have a good environment for our employees.
That we're compliant to state and federal guidelines and that we do business proper That you are often involved in solving problems as they arise?
Our business is a single talent business that is driven by one party.
And I endeavor to take care of some of the delegated duties that is not convenient to be done by the principal.
Okay.
I think I understand that.
The single talent.
Who do you report to?
I report to Alex, if anyone.
Okay.
Who else reports directly to Alex?
Everyone.
All the key personalities in the business.
Okay.
So that's not everyone because there are, how many employees at Free Speech Systems?
I think 70.
Okay.
So not all 70 employees have a direct reporting relationship balance, correct?
A majority of them do.
The majority of them do.
Who do you consider to be the corporate leadership at Free Speech Systems?
Alex Jones.
Nobody else.
Nobody else.
So I want to just focus on business and marketing plans.
You attested, am I correct, that information regarding the business and marketing plans of Free Speech Systems was confidential and proprietary, correct?
That seems reasonable to me.
And highly valuable to free speech systems, correct?
Well, if you don't know how to do business, you can't do business.
So, correct.
So, tell me what the business plan or plans were that you were referring to as confidential, proprietary, and highly valuable.
Essentially, our core philosophy is what was involved, and I don't know that I really should have been concerned because it's probably not articulated in paper in any place.
But in reality, it has to do with the fact that our customers are so loyal to us that they believe in what we're doing to such a degree that if we say something is good for you and is of good value, they're going to buy it and buy a lot of it.
It's hard to articulate that, but the core of the heart of things can sometimes be very simple and very valuable.
Are you aware whether Free Speech Systems collects data concerning when, during, and Alex Jones broadcast, it has the most sales activity?
Only in the sense that if there have been days where we had extraordinarily good sales, someone will say, what was Alex saying when that happened?
And so we like to emulate spikes.
Okay.
And on those occasions where there have been spikes in sales, as you said, that's something that free speech systems would reasonably try to emulate.
Yes.
Okay.
Just going back a moment to Those times where sales spike or revenue spikes and correlating that to whatever was happening on the air.
Who would be most knowledgeable within the organization about those sales trends that you described from 2012 to 2010?
Alex, Jen.
Alex would be.
Okay.
What precisely have you observed in that regard?
I've observed, for example, if people are being stressed out about the idea of there being very dangerous flu things out there and stuff, and we have found that there is a if people are being stressed out about the idea of there being very dangerous flu things out there and stuff, and we have found that there is a product that is licensed
If there is a headline that the disease control of the center in Atlanta is saying that flu is up five, times and we say we have something that we believe will support your immune system And I personally use it as a hand sanitizer.
you know, that kind of press resale as well.
That concludes David Jones' testimony in our presentation for today.
Alright, so I wanted to just give you some information.
First of all, the lawyers asked me to tell you, and I agreed to, that the reason that you have tomorrow off is not because of them.
It's because I'm taking a rare day off.
So don't blame the lawyers.
You can blame me.
It looks like that the evidence will conclude next week.
So we continue to track ahead of schedule everything to the Credit of the lawyers.
Everything has been moving really as efficiently as one ever sees in a trial, so to their credit, we remain ahead of schedule.
We now are going to have four and a half days off before we see you again.
That's a long time, and so it becomes so very important for all of us that You continue to obey the rules of juror conduct, and you continue to make all reasonable efforts to avoid any and all media coverage directly or indirectly about this case.
You've come so far, so hopefully you can avoid any problems, but again, I implore you that if you do encounter anything that concerns you, Please let Ron know in a written note, and we are prepared to deal with it.
So don't have any hesitancy at all about letting Ron know so that we can deal with it on the spot.
With that, I hope you all enjoy the rest of the afternoon, the long weekend, and we will see you at Tuesday for our normal 10 a.m.
start.
Thank you very much, Ron.
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