Judge refuses to toss suit over Pepe the Frog poster sales

A federal judge will let a jury decide whether conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars website had a legal right to sell a poster featuring the image of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character that became hijacked by far-right extremists.

U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald refused Thursday to throw out a copyright infringement lawsuit that Pepe’s creator, California-based artist Matt Furie, filed against Infowars over its poster sales.

Lawyers for Furie and Infowars both said they were pleased by the ruling, which clears a path for a jury trial to begin July 16 in Los Angeles.

Louis Tompros, one Furie’s lawyers, said his client looks forward to asking jurors to hold Infowars accountable for misappropriating Pepe, the anthropomorphic frog he created in the early 2000s.