Florida police have arrested a Sandy Hook “truther” who has long tormented the families of kids killed in the 2012 massacre.
Wolfgang Halbig, a former contributor to conspiracy site Infowars, was arrested Monday in Lake County and charged with unlawfully possessing the personal information of Leonard Pozner — whose 6-year-old son Noah was among the 20 students and educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. in 2012.
Halbig, 73, allegedly emailed Pozner’s Social Security number, date of birth and other personal information to a number of law enforcement agencies and media companies, The New York Times reports.
He was released Monday on a $5,000 bond and is due back in court on Feb. 24, according to court documents.
If convicted on the felony charge, he could spend up to a year behind bars.
Pushing the notion that the shooting was a hoax cooked up to confiscate Americans’ guns, Halbig has plagued victims’ families by releasing their personal info online or sending them photos that he claimed were proof that their children were actually grown up, the Times reports.
Pozner has worked to protect other families from Halbig since 2014 — and says the man retaliated against him by posting his address and other sensitive information online.
As a result, Ponzer says he now lives in hiding.
“For five years, he has used my most personal and private details to incentivize and enable other hoaxers and conspiracy theorists to hunt, abuse and terrorize myself and my family,” Pozner told The Times.
Halbig spread his Sandy Hook hoax theories by sending Infowars host Alex Jones more than 4,000 emails on the topic, court documents show.
Jones is also accused of promoting the conspiracy theory that the shooting was a hoax to push gun-control laws — which has made him the target of four lawsuits by families of Sandy Hook victims.
In a taped deposition held last year for one of the lawsuits, Jones said that he was just “going off what Mr. Halbig said.”
“Looking at those emails … you wouldn’t agree with me that that man is a raving lunatic?” a lawyer bluntly asks Jones during the deposition.
“He seemed very credible and put together earlier on,” Jones replied. Halbig did not immediately respond to a request for comment.