The parents of two children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, have filed lawsuits against the right-wing radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for allegedly making false claims about the incident.
Jones has previously alleged the 2012 shooting, where 20 children and six adults died, was a "hoax" and featured in a video titled Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed in April 2017.
The lawsuits were filed in Travis County District Court in Austin, Texas, where Jones runs his website InfoWars.
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The two families are suing for a "severe degree of mental stress and anguish" and "high degree of psychological pain" endured during Jones' coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting over the last year, according to CNN.
"Defendants acted with actual malice. Defendants' defamatory statements were knowingly false or made with reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statements at the time the statements were made," the lawsuit alleges, according to CNN.
Parents Leonard Pozner and Veronique De Le Rosa, and Neil Heslin are suing Jones for at least $US1 million. Their respective sons, Noah Pozner and Jesse Lewis, were killed during the shooting.
The suits allege Jones, who is a proponent of gun ownership, has previously implied that the parents of the Sandy Hook shooting are actors.
One of the suits focuses on a segment on Jones' show called Sandy Hook Vampires Exposed. In the segment, he falsely claims a technical glitch in the broadcasted interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper was evidence of a fake interview with Ms De La Rosa.
The Sandy Hook shooting rocked the US after a shooter drove to an elementary school on 14 December and killed 20 year one students and six adults.
