Alex Jones verdict: Jury orders conspiracy theorist to pay nearly $1,000,000,000 to Sandy Hook victims
A jury has ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay nearly $1billion to the families of victims of the Sandy Hook mass shooting.
The jury in Connecticut on Wednesday afternoon awarded $965million in compensatory damages to the families and a first responder for slander and emotional distress. Jones was notably not in court at the time of the decision.
Jones must pay families for claiming that the victims were acting and faked the deadly December 2012 massacre. For years, Jones claimed that the massacre was staged and part of a plan by the government to take away guns from Americans.
The jury also awarded punitive damages to the families and first responder, who sued Jones. In Connecticut, punitive damages apply to lawyers’ fees.
The decision is the second multimillion-dollar verdict against Jones in slightly over two months. In August, a different jury found Jones and Infowars, the far-right website he founded, liable to pay $49.3million to victims’ parents in Austin, Texas, where his company is headquartered.
The jury’s decision on Wednesday was not read out immediately in a court, as Judge Barbara Bellis first sent jurors back to complete a verdict form.
Prosecutors had asked Jones to pay $550million to parents who claimed that Infowars spread lies about the massacre that left 26 people including 20 students dead.
Last year, a judge found Jones and the parent company of Infowars, Free Speech Systems, liable in the defamation lawsuit. Eight families of victims and an FBI agent who responded during the incident were among the plaintiffs.
Jones previously testified that he believed at the time of the massacre that it could have been faked, but now sees it was real. He has not apologized to the victims’ families.
Jones’ defense attorney, Norm Pattis, called it a ‘dark day for freedom of speech’. Pattis said Jones ‘has never seen a case like this’ and plans to appeal the decision.
‘We disagree with the basis of the default, we disagree with the court’s evidentiary rulings,’ said Pattis. ‘In more than 200 trials in the course of my career I have never seen a trial like this.’
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