The custody trial involving media celebrity Alex Jones ended with the father of three losing physical custody of the children to his ex-wife. It’s a rather dramatic turn-around, given that his ex-wife has had only occasional supervised visitation for the last two years.
We’ve previously discussed the question of whether or not the bombastic star of “Infowars” could lose custody of his children due to his on-the-air antics. His attorneys effectively dealt with the question of what their client was really like by trying to distance the man from the media persona he’d created.
They were successful at keeping most of the media clips from “Infowars” from being shown in court. What they couldn’t control was their client — his own actions in court may have been the undoing of his defense and destroyed what seemed like a solid footing against his ex-wife’s custody case.
When first divorced, Jones had enjoyed the support of a slew of professionals. They had declared his ex-wife’s “emotional dysregulation” a danger to the children, stripping her of most of her time with the children. Somehow, the fact that Jones was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, a serious mental health issue, escaped notice.
His ex-wife’s current legal team focused on the media star’s disorder and his determination to keep the children and their mother apart. They said that previous experts had missed the classic signs of parental alienation syndrome, where one parent engages in actions designed to encourage the children to disrespect, loathe and even fear their other parent — purely for their personal satisfaction.
In court, Jones behaved exactly like you’d expect a narcissist with a determination to demonize his ex-wife to behave. He rolled his eyes, sighed and fidgeted during arguments. When asked to name one good parenting trait his ex-wife possessed, he dramatically insisted she had none. He excused his own inability to recall important information about his children on a large lunch.
While it’s impossible to tell for certain, it might have gone better for Jones if he had shown a more composed demeanor in court, not tried to play up the theatrics and been more clearly sympathetic toward the mother of his children. Cases like this illustrate just how quickly a parent can lose the goodwill of the court in a custody case by behaving badly.
An attorney can provide assistance with your own custody case.
Source: The Daily Beast, “Infowars' Alex Jones Loses Custody Case, Ex-Wife Wins Right to Decide Where Children Live,” Ben Hartman, April 27, 2017
