Alex Jones ordered to pay Sandy Hook parents more than $4M
Alex Jones on Thursday was ordered to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages to the parents of a 6-year-old boy who was one of 20 first graders slaughtered in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.
The verdict, signed by 10 members of the 12-person jury in Austin, Texas, marks the first time the far-right Infowars founder has been held financially accountable for falsely claiming that the attack on the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school was a hoax.
Lawyers for the families of Sandy Hook victims had requested $150 million for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional stress. Jones’ lawyers, meanwhile, had asked that he pay $8 in the defamation case — one dollar for each of the compensation charges the jury considered.
Jones, 48, had told the jury that any verdict over $2 million would “sink” his company, but added “I think it’s appropriate for whatever you decide you want to do.”
The jury also has to decide how much Jones must pay in punitive damages to plaintiffs Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse Lewis was slain in the massacre. Jones has claimed the lawsuit is an attack on his first amendment rights.
Jones admitted for the first time that the mass shooting was “100% real,” when he testified on the stand in his own defense Wednesday. He also conceded that it was “absolutely irresponsible” to falsely claim that the massacre was staged as a means to push gun control during his testimony.
The apology, Heslin and Lewis said, was not enough to compensate for the pain and suffering the conspiracy theorist has put them and the other grieving families victims through.
The parents testified on Tuesday about the ongoing trauma instigated by Jones — including gunshots fired at a home, threatening phone calls and online messages and harassment from strangers on the streets.
During her testimony, Lewis looked directly at Jones, just feet away and ripped him for lying.
“It seems so incredible to me that we have to do this — that we have to implore you, to punish you — to get you to stop lying,” Lewis told Jones.
Jones was grilled on the stand by parents’ attorney Mark Bankston as they reviewed videos of false claims he made about the shooting on his website.
Bankston left Jones dumbstruck after he informed him that his lawyers accidentally sent over a digital receipt of every text Jones sent about the Sandy Hook shooting. Jones had claimed that he found zero texts regarding the massacre after they were requested by the court.
Jones’ media company Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy during the two-week trial.
With Post wires
