Chobani yogurt company sues conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host Alex Jones for alleged defamation

— -- The Chobani yogurt company is suing far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for alleged defamation, after the shock jock published what the company says are false and defamatory stories.

At issue in the suit filed Monday is a video published on Jones’ InfoWars website and social media accounts earlier this month in which two InfoWars staffers discuss the publicity that Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya received for hiring refugees at his plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, and the separate case of three refugee youth who pleaded guilty in the assault of a 5-year-old girl in the same city.

The youth, who had no connection to the plant, were reportedly ages 7 to 14 and were involved in inappropriately touching the girl while filming the incident.

“In the video, Mr. Knight republishes the false statement that the Chobani plant brought crime and tuberculosis to the community,” the suit said.

The assault was "unrelated to Chobani," it said.

The video was promoted on the @PlanetPrisonTV Twitter account under the headline: “Idaho Yogurt Maker Caught Importing Migrant Rapists.” The assertion made in the headline was not made in the video.

The lawsuit alleges that the Twitter account is controlled by InfoWars and that the video was retweeted by Jones himself.

Jones and InfoWars “declined to remove the defamatory statements or publish a retraction,” the suit says. “Defendants promoted the video with the defamatory headline ‘Idaho Yogurt Maker Caught Importing Migrant Rapists’ despite knowing that the statement was false or while clearly doubting the truth of the statement.”

In the video, the two staffers refer to the assault case -- in which three refugee youths pleaded guilty -- as “the Idaho rape case.”

But “police and prosecutors said there was no rape,” according to the Twin Falls Times-News. Instead, the unnamed boys pleaded guilty in the assault.

Chobani is seeking punitive damages worth at least $10,000.

Responding to the suit, Jones appeared in a video posted to the InfoWars website on Tuesday, in which he blamed billionaire George Soros, saying “he had his Islamicist-owned and backed U.S. company openly file suit against InfoWars today for stating information that is part of the public record.”

“I’m not saying he [Ulukaya] consciously brought in people he thought were going to rape, but people he brought in and force-fed on America have now been implicated, indicted, and now have pled guilty to that,” Jones also said.

An email ABC News sent to Soros’ foundation seeking comment was not immediately returned. He is not mentioned in the suit and there’s no suggestion that he has any connection.