Jones, who was the defense’s only witness during the trial, did not fare well Wednesday as he was cross-examined by plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Bankston. In a remarkable moment, Bankston revealed to Jones and the jury that he had recently obtained evidence that proved Jones had lied when he claimed during discovery that he never texted about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. Bankston said Jones’ attorney, in an apparent fluke, sent him two years’ worth of cell phone records that included every text message Jones had sent. Cell phone records, Bankston said, showed Jones had indeed texted about the Sandy Hook shooting. “That’s how I know you lied to me when you said you had no messages about Sandy Hook,” Bankston said. Bankston showed Jones a text message he had about Sandy Hook. But Jones testified that he had “never seen those text messages.” When reminded that Jones had testified under oath that he had searched his phone during the discovery phase of the trial and could not locate any messages about Sandy Hook, Jones insisted he “didn’t lie.” At another point, Jones was asked if he had linked Maya Guerra Gamble, the judge overseeing the trial, to pedophilia and human trafficking. When Jones denied doing it, Bankston played video for the pitch of an Infowars video that did just that. In the video, Jones attacked Gamble’s previous work for Child Protective Services, claiming the agency had been “exposed” for “working for pedophiles.” Gamble, whose office did not respond to an earlier request for comment about Infowars attacking her in such terms, laughed when she saw a screenshot of the video in court Wednesday. “The person on the left of this picture is our judge, right?” Bankston asked Jones. Jones replied that he was. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said Tuesday they plan to seek sanctions against Jones for being dishonest on the stand. And Gamble on Tuesday also admonished Jones for breaking his oath to tell the truth twice. “You are already under oath to tell the truth,” Gamble said Tuesday. “You have already broken that oath twice today, in these two examples alone. It seems absurd to suggest to you again that you must tell the truth while testifying. Yet here I am again.” “This is not your show,” Gamble added to him on Wednesday. After Jones concluded his testimony Wednesday, the defense made its case and closing arguments began. A jury could potentially decide how much to award Sandy Hook parents as early as this week. The current trial is the first of three that will determine how much Jones will have to pay several Sandy Hook families who sued him and won default judgments.
