Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist that claimed the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, has been ordered by a jury to pay $965 million in damages to the families of the victims of the tragedy.
The individual falsely claimed that the 2012 mass shooting was all a ploy to enforce gun laws in the United States. In the defamation trial held in Connecticut, the families of eight victims and an FBI agent who responded to the attack had sought $550 million for reparations.
$965 million in Damages
The accusers claimed that Jones' misinformation on his website, InfoWars, resulted in a decade of harassment and death threats aimed at the victims' families. The tragic incident resulted in the killing of 20 children and six adults.
The defendant argued for years that the brutal massacre was just a "staged" government plot to take Americans' guns away and claimed that no one died. Jones also called the parents of the victims "crisis actors" and said that some of them never actually existed in the first place, as per BBC.
Now, Jones acknowledges that the mass shooting was "100% real" in a concession that he made in August during a separate defamation trial held in Texas. On Wednesday, as the jury's verdict was read out in Waterbury, many of the families were seen becoming emotional, some shedding tears.
The trial, which lasted for three weeks, was marked by emotional testimony from a succession of parents. Some of those who testified described receiving online hate while others said that they were forced to change homes in order to ensure their own safety.
According to the NewsTimes, with the result of the trial, the parent company of Jones' InfoWars, Free Speech Systems, has filed for bankruptcy as there is a veil of secrecy surrounding his finances. He was already ordered to pay $49 million to the parents of Jesse Lewis, one of the children slain in the shooting.
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Alex Jones Trial
However, regarding that payment, a Texas judge is expected to consider whether or not Jones can invoke a state law that limits damages to $750,000 on Oct. 20. An economist who testified during the Texas trial estimated Jones' net worth to be between $135 and $270 million.
Texas Judge Maya Guerra Gamble admonished the defendant and Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis told him that he cannot mention his bankruptcy filing on the stand. The individual is known to have siphoned money from his main company for years, especially after he lost three defamation lawsuits by default in 2021.
Jones also withdrew $65 million in September 2021 after Gamble ruled that he had lost the lawsuits to Sandy Hook families by default for not complying with court orders, said financial forensic expert Bernard Francis Pettingill, Jr. The nearly $1 billion in damages that Jones is ordered to pay will be divided among the families of the victims that filed against him.
This is distributed as $120 million for Robbie Parker, $36 million for William Sherlach, $109 million for David and Francine Wheeler, $86.4 million for Jacqueline and Mark Barden, $155.2 million for Nicole and Ian Hockley, $52 million for Jennifer Hensel, $240.4 million for the Soto family, $90 million for William Aldenberg, and $76 million for Erica Lafferty, the New York Times reported.
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