Alex Jones has been ordered to pay a total of $965 million in damages to the plaintiffs of the defamation trial surrounding his lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting. The 15 plaintiffs of the case included the relatives of eight Sandy Hook victims, as well as a former FBI agent suing Jones.
A Connecticut jury reached a unanimous verdict Wednesday afternoon before the judge read aloud a detailed report of the various damages owed to each plaintiff by Jones and his media company, Free Speech Systems.
Jones was found liable of violating Connecticut’s Unfair Trade Practices Act by using lies about the Sandy Hook massacre to sell products on his website. Under that law, there is no limit on punitive damages.
Jones had already been found liable for defamation for spreading disinformation about the shooting, which killed 20 students and six faculty members in December 2012. The shooter, Adam Lanza, also killed his mother and himself.
On his “Infowars” show, Jones called the Sandy Hook tragedy “as fake as the $3 bill,” claiming that the shooting was staged by the government in order to take away Americans’ guns. Jones falsely claimed that the victims were actors who faked the massacre.
Lawyers for the families said last week that Jones has profited from his lies about Sandy Hook for years, driving traffic to his Infowars website and increasing sales of his various products. Meanwhile, the families have suffered harassment and death threats by Jones’ followers for a decade and are “drowning in grief,” said attorney Chris Mattei.
During his August trial for defaming Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of Sandy Hook victim Jesse Lewis, Jones said he now believes the shooting is “100% real.” He was ordered to pay Heslin and Lewis $49 million in damages by a Texas jury last month.
(Excerpt) Read more in: Variety