BRIDGEPORT - Six families of victims killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and an FBI agent who responded to the scene filed a defamation lawsuit May 23 against conspiracy theorist and radio and television personality Alex Jones; the financial network that supports him; Jones' frequent guest, Wolfgang Halbig; and Halbig's associate, Cory Sklanka.

The case outlines a years-long campaign of abusive and false statements in which Jones and the other defendants have developed, amplified, and perpetuated claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged and that the 26 families who lost loved ones that day are paid actors who faked their relatives' deaths. Jones' actions subjected the families and survivors of the Sandy Hook shooting to physical confrontations and harassment, death threats, and personal attacks on social media. As the complaint details, Alex Jones and his coconspirators engineered and maintained this campaign for a simple reason: greed.

Since the shooting, Alex Jones has used his show to perpetuate the notion that the Sandy Hook massacre did not happen. Among his assertions are the following:

*"Sandy Hook is synthetic, completely fake, with actors - in my view, manufactured. I couldn't believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids, and it just shows how bold they are that they clearly used actors."

*"It took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake. I mean, even I couldn't believe it. I knew they jumped on it, used the crisis, hyped it up, but then I did deep research, and my gosh, it just pretty much didn't happen."

*"The whole thing is a giant hoax, and the problem is, how do you deal with a total hoax? How do you even convince the public something's a total hoax?"

*"It's fake. The whole thing is just - I don't know what happened. It's kind of like if you see a hologram at Disney World in the Haunted House - and you know, I don't know how they do it, but it's not real."

*"They're obviously looking for a big PR bonanza and then to bring in all the actors to break down and cry. And they think we're so stupid that they even use the same actors as different people."

*"This is a tragedy. I wish it never would have happened. But quite frankly, I wish that the official story was true because that's a lot less scary than them staging something like this. But when you think about how they staged [weapons of mass destruction] to kill over a million Iraqis, when you think about all the other hoaxes, all the other lies, all the other rigging, and the way they're freaking out about it and trying to cover up every level of it, it just makes me ask what really happened there."

"While the nation recoiled at the terrible reality of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Alex Jones saw an opportunity," said the families' attorney, Josh Koskoff of Koskoff, Koskoff andamp; Bieder. "He went on a sustained attack that has lasted for years, accusing shattered family members of being actors, stating as fact that the shooting itself was a hoax, and inciting others to act on these malicious lies. He knew his claims were false, but he made them anyway to further a simple but pathetic goal: to make money by tearing away at the families' pain. This lawsuit seeks to hold Alex Jones and his financial network accountable for those disgraceful actions."

The plaintiffs are the parents of four children killed at Sandy Hook - Jacqueline and Mark Barden, parents of Daniel; Nicole and Ian Hockley, parents of Dylan; Francine and David Wheeler, parents of Ben; and Jennifer Hensel and Jeremy Richman, parents of Avielle - as well as Donna Soto, Carlee Soto-Parisi, Carlos M. Soto, and Jillian Soto, the mother and three siblings (respectively) of first-grade teacher Victoria Leigh Soto; and Erica Lafferty-Garbatini, the daughter of Sandy Hook Elementary School Principal Dawn Hochsprung. William (Bill) Aldenberg, an FBI agent and first responder to the scene, is also a plaintiff.

Beginning five days after the shooting in December 2012, Jones used his platform not only to attack the victims' families, but also to urge his millions of followers to "investigate" for themselves, a process likely to cause tremendous emotional distress to many of the families. Predictably, many of those who have directly harassed or abused Sandy Hook families have apparently been motivated by Jones's urging that his listeners "investigate."

Alex Jones has also frequently praised and promoted the theories of Wolfgang Halbig, a frequent guest on Jones's show. Halbig, from Sorrento, Fla., was the founder of the now-defunct website, sandyhookjustice.com. Through that site and his social media channels, he regularly questions whether the Sandy Hook massacre actually took place (and, more recently, whether the Pulse nightclub and Parkland shootings took place). He frequently solicits donations to help fund his efforts.

Halbig has repeatedly promoted the false claim that David Wheeler and FBI agent William Aldenberg are the same person, and that person is a so-called "crisis actor." Halbig has posted on his Facebook page a series of side-by-side photos of the two men and identified both as Wheeler.

"Like any marketplace, the marketplace of ideas that the First Amendment was meant to protect cannot function properly without accountability for reprehensible and harmful falsehoods like those propagated by Alex Jones and the other defendants'," said attorney Matt Blumenthal of Koskoff, Koskoff andamp; Bieder. "Because of Jones and his coconspirators' campaign of unconscionable lies, many thousands of people currently believe that our clients faked their loved ones' deaths. These families have been continually harassed and abused as a result, all while attempting to face fathomless loss. Today, they say: No more."

In addition to Jones and Halbig, the lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Bridgeport, also names as defendants several out-of-state corporate entities that form the business structure of Jones's network. Specifically, the other defendants are:

*Infowars LLC, a Texas-based limited liability company that produces and broadcasts The Alex Jones Show on Infowars, which holds itself out as a news and journalism platform.

*Free Speech Systems LLC, also based in Texas, which owns Infowars, LLC.

*Infowars Health LLC and Prison Planet TV, LLC.

All four above-mentioned LLCs are owned, controlled, and/or operated by Alex Jones and are employed to hold and generate revenue for him.

*Genesis Communications Network Inc., a privately held company incorporated in Minnesota. It distributes radio programs produced by Alex Jones and Infowars, and it was founded by Ted Anderson, who has appeared many times on Jones's shows to promote his other business, defendant Midas Resources.

*Midas Resources Inc., a privately held company incorporated in Minnesota that sells precious metals, dietary supplements, and other items as advertised by and in cooperation with Genesis Communications and the Jones-controlled companies.

*Cory Sklanka, a conspiracy theorist who resides in Meriden, Conn., (one hour from Sandy Hook); Sklanka has worked closely with Halbig in Halbig's Sandy Hook hoaxing work, acting as a driver and camera operator when Halbig visits Connecticut to conduct hoax-related activities.