Alex Jones was ordered by the judge to pay $45.2 Million in punitive damages after repeatedly claiming that the 2012 massacre was a hoax.AnnouncementFriday, bringing his total liability to the family of a 6-year-old shooting victim to nearly $50 million.
On Thursday, Infowars host Jones was ordered to pay $4.2million for compensatory damages. After Jones and Free Speech Systems, his media company, were found guilty of defamation and inflicting distress to Sandy Hook families, the Texas jury determined the amount.
Infowars founder, however, had offered $120,000 per plaintiff as a settlement. However, the families chose to have a jury decide and sought damages of up to $150,000,000. Jones faces two additional damages hearings.
The punitive phase was started by jurors Friday afternoon. They returned their verdict in just five hours. Jones was already found to be liable for intentional infliction or emotional distress and defamation against Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, parents of Jesse Lewis 6-year-old son.
Heslin and LewisJones’ claims made their lives a “living hell.”Jones, who over the years has promoted the unfounded idea that Sandy Hook was an espionage agency “false flag”Operation carried out by “crisis actors,”Has recently admittedthat he now believes the shooting was “100% real.”
Jones’ testimony got especially interesting when the Sandy Hook families’ lawyer told the conspiracy theorist that his legal team had sent a digital copy of Jones’ phone, complete with all the text messages and emails he had sent over the past two years, to the prosecution’s team, presumably in error.
Jones wasFoundliable for damages after families from 10 children killed in the school shooting filed four lawsuits against the host and his media company Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, in Nov. 2021. The families highlight Jones’ role in the harassment and death threats they faced after he spread conspiracy theories that denied the shooting’s existance.