Judge suspends law license of lawyer for Alex Jones following Sandy Hook document leaks

A Connecticut decide suspended the legislation license of a lawyer for right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones after he allegedly improperly launched courtroom paperwork from the Sandy Hook defamation case.

The recordsdata included two years of Jones’ textual content messages, medical information from a few of the Sandy Hook households and different confidential discovery objects.

“At a primary degree, attorneys should competently and appropriately deal with the invention of delicate supplies in civil instances,” Decide Barbara Bellis wrote in a courtroom order that suspended legal professional Norman Pattis’ license for six months. “In any other case, our civil system, during which discovery of delicate data is customary and routine, would merely collapse.”

Bellis mentioned she “flatly rejected” Pattis’ assertion that his launch of the confidential information was an “inadvertent mistake,” writing that Pattis “failed to supply even the minimal quantity of consideration and care required when it got here to dealing with the plaintiffs’ delicate discovery supplies.”

“We can not count on our system of justice or out attorneys to be good however we are able to count on basic equity and decency,” Bellis wrote. “There was no equity or decency within the therapy of the plaintiffs’ most delicate and private data, and no excuse for [Pattis’] misconduct.

Regardless of his license suspension, Pattis is at present on the authorized crew representing Proud Boys chief Joseph Biggs as he faces trial for seditious conspiracy costs in Washington, DC. Pattis alerted the decide in that case of his suspension Friday morning, saying that he deliberate to attraction the suspension and would proceed representing Biggs.

Pattis won’t make any arguments in courtroom on Friday, he mentioned, whereas he recordsdata an attraction and researches whether or not he can observe legislation in Washington, DC, regardless of the Connecticut suspension.

Pattis didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the suspension.