AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas jury on Thursday ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay more than $4 million in compensatory damages to the parents of a 6-year-old boy who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, marking the first time the Infowars host has been held financially liable for repeatedly claiming the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history was a hoax.
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The Austin jury must still decide how much the Infowars host must pay in punitive damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 children and six educators who were killed in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut.
The parents had sought at least $150 million in compensation for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Jones’ attorney asked the jury to limit damages to $8 — one dollar for each of the compensation charges they are considering — and Jones himself said any award over $2 million “would sink us.”
It likely won’t be the last judgment against Jones over his claims that the attack was staged in the interests of increasing gun controls. A Connecticut judge has ruled against him in a similar lawsuit brought by other victims’ families and an FBI agent who worked on the case.
The Texas award could set a marker for other cases against Jones and underlines the financial threat he’s facing. It also raises new questions about the ability of Infowars — which has been banned from YouTube, Spotify and Twitter for hate speech — to continue operating, although the company’s finances remain unclear.
Jones conceded during the trial that the attack was real and that he was wrong to have lied about it. But Heslin and Lewis told jurors that an apology wouldn’t suffice and called on them to make Jones pay for the years of suffering he has put them and other Sandy Hook families through.
Jones’ media company Free Speech Systems, which is Infowars’ parent company, filed for bankruptcy during the two-week trial.
I watched much of the trial and think Jones deserved a higher penalty. However there is more to come from this case and there are still 2 others pending.
A separate, shorter trial during which punitive damages will be discussed is now expected. Punitive damages are awarded when the court finds the defendant’s behavior to be especially offensive. Jones is one of the most offensive persons that I’m aware of. He clearly committed perjury several times yesterday
Not to worry
He’ll get his low intelligence followers to ante up .
It’s hard to understand how this was legally libel. So he said crazy nonsense. Did he impugn the parents with committing a crime they didn’t commit? Did he ruin their reputations in any way? Look up the definition of libel, I don’t see it hear. All I see is people who don’t like a guy who makes nutty claims that the children were never murdered. Alex Jones obviously had lousy legal counsel. that may be a grounds for appeal. His lawyer admitted he gave over confidential privileged material to the Petitioner’s attorney, who used some of that in the trial.
I don’t understand why he has to pay money. OK, he was off saying what he said, but did he cause such suffering that he has to pay millions? A plain hoodlum who robs and beats his victim physically and causes mental anguish gets off with less.
According to halacha, would he have to pay?
It is being said elsewhere: “first they came for Alex Jones”.
These families of the Sandy Hook catastrophe are looking to make Jones into a pariah. He might have been initially wrong about what actually happened in Sandy Hook, but this should not entitle them to financial compensation for his remarks that did nothing to malign them – not in actuality nor in intent.
The government is afraid of Jones, and for what he has revealed about corruption, they should be afraid. However, they are allowing the guilt-mongering citizenry to pounce over the man, Jones, who has stood up for American freedoms and concerns with a true and heroic perspective for many years.
Shameful of the courts and the Sandy Hook families who have taken this way too far.
Did anyone notice him wearing tefilin in court?
The pic of him with tefilin is kind of weird.
Amazing. This person Jones is a rasha merusha