From: American Statesman
Ex-wife of Infowars host Alex Jones wins joint custody
By Jonathan Tilove – American-Statesman Staff 9
Play Video
Kelly Jones reacts to favorable verdict in child custody case.
The verdict by the Travis County jury means that the Jones children will now live with Kelly instead of Alex Jones.
Updated: 10:32 p.m. Thursday, April 27, 2017 | Posted: 6:41 p.m. Thursday, April 27, 2017
After nine hours of deliberation, a Travis County jury in the Alex Jones-Kelly Jones child custody trial gave Kelly Jones a great victory, awarding her joint custody with the right to have their three children make their primary residence with her instead of her husband for the first time since the couple’s 2015 divorce.
Alex Jones will share joint custody, which means that he will have visitation rights. …
He had predicted during the trial that a verdict like this would lead his son to run away from home.
… At stake was whether the three Jones’ children, ages 9, 12 and 14, would continue to live with Alex Jones, the provocative broadcaster whose Infowars show has made him currently the most influential conspiracy theorist, or live instead with his ex-wife, who described him on the stand as a “violent, cruel and abusive man” who is “enraged and out of control most of the time.”
In his closing argument Thursday, Kelly Jones’ attorney Robert Hoffman argued that she was the victim of parental alienation with Alex Jones brainwashing their children to align with him and turn against her.
“Mr. Jones is like a cult leader; the children appear to be cult followers, doing what Daddy wants them to do,” said Hoffman.
“Nobody knows how to stop this man,” Hoffman told the jury, and that, he said, included Judge Orlinda Naranjo, who throughout the trial repeatedly told Alex Jones to stop making faces and nodding and shaking his head in reaction to testimony.
“Nobody can stop this man except the 12 of you,” Hoffman said. “You have an unbelievable amount of power.”
But Alex Jones’ lawyers depicted Kelly Jones as emotionally unstable, self-absorbed and paranoid. …
David Minton, another of Alex Jones’ lawyers … Minton struck a rare, conciliatory note in the contentious nine-day trial, saying that while Kelly Jones wasn’t yet ready to see her children on a more regular basis, she was on her way there.
“She is working hard to get better. …
Kelly Jones’ lawyers said she now sees her children as little as four hours a month.
The case stood out mostly because of the celebrity of Alex Jones and the question of whether he would have to distance himself from his Infowars’ persona….
Yes, he sometimes engages in satire, Jones insisted, but his on-air politics are genuine.
In court, he and his lawyers simply contended that he didn’t bring his often angry, raging on-air personality home with him and into his parenting.
But Kelly Jones testified that he was the same “volatile,” “hateful,” personality on the air and at home. …
Alex Jones’ lawyers went first in presenting their case and through most of the trial, the jurors were left with the impression that Kelly Jones was an emotional mess, subject to episodes of “emotional dysfunction” in which her responses were uncontrollable and disproportionate to the circumstances. It was used to explain why the children lived with Alex Jones since even before the 2015 divorce was finalized and why Kelly Jones now had such limited access to her children.
But when her lawyers got to present their case this week, they created a picture of a woman prone to anxiety who was driven to emotional dysfunction by the threat of losing her children.
Related:
InfoWars’ Alex Jones Loses Custody Case, Ex-Wife Wins Right to Decide Where Children Live, by Ben Harman
Leave a Reply