A Texas jury yesterday ordered controversial US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $45.2 million in punitive damages for falsely asserting that the deadly 2012 Sandy Hook elementary shooting was a ‘hoax.’
The jury’s last judgement, which was $4.1 million in compensatory damages for the mental distress caused by Jones’ years-long dissemination of false information on his InfoWars web and radio talk shows, went to a couple whose child perished at Sandy Hook.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the enormous settlement obtained from Jones, who amassed a large following for his frequently ludicrous conspiracy theories, validated the lawsuits brought by the families of some of the 20 schoolchildren and six adults who were killed by a 20-year-old man in one of the deadliest school shootings in American history.
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The $49.3 million total judgement was far less than the $150 million sought by the plaintiffs in the Texas case, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose six-year-old son Jesse was killed.
Still, Lewis said that Jones had been ‘held accountable.’
‘Today the jury proved that most of America is ready to choose love over fear and I’ll be forever grateful to them,’ Lewis tweeted.
Jones, a vocal supporter of former president Donald Trump, claimed for years on InfoWars that the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was ‘staged’ by gun control activists.
He has since acknowledged it was ‘100 percent real,’ but the Sandy Hook families maintained that his denialism, coupled with his ability to influence the beliefs of thousands of followers, caused real emotional trauma.
He was also accused of pulling in massive profits from harmful lies and disinformation.
The judgement is not likely the end of legal woes for the 48-year-old Jones, who is also facing another defamation suit in Connecticut.
He has been found liable in multiple defamation cases brought by parents of the Sandy Hook victims, and the Texas case was the first to reach the damages phase.
He is also under scrutiny for his participation in the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.
During the hearing ahead of the decision Friday, Wesley Ball, attorney for the parents who brought the case, urged the jury to take a stand against misinformation.