CONSPIRACY peddler Alex Jones has been ordered to pay nearly $1 billion for spreading hurtful lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.
Infowar’s loudmouth Jones, 48, has hurt victims’ families for years and raked in millions of dollars by claiming the entire tragedy was staged.
Parents of dead children and an FBI agent who responded to the massacre received death threats and vicious abuse from Jones’ followers after he falsely claimed they were “crisis actors.”
He outrageously insisted that “no one died” and that the massacre was a “hoax” by the government to impose stricter gun control laws.
Twenty children and six teachers were murdered at the school in one of the deadliest mass shootings ever in the US.
Now a jury in Connecticut has ordered Jones to pay a total of $965 million to the families of eight of the victims. FBI agent after a defamation lawsuit.
Jones was not present in court but mocked the ruling while live-streaming it on his fake news website Infowars.
Afterwards, the multi-millionaire shock jock claimed there was “no money” and vowed to appeal.
He said, ‘Do these people really think they’re going to get any of this money?
“It’s about fighting this fraud and stabilizing the company.”
Jones’ company is said to be worth about $270 million, but recently filed for bankruptcy protection. Lawyers claimed this was a delaying tactic to frustrate compensation claims.
He and his entourage flew from his home state of Texas to Connecticut for the trial on a private jet.
According to the New York Times, they stayed in a rented villa with a pool and tennis court.
Grieving parents and counselors testified that they were stalked and tormented for years by Jones’ followers who believed his lies.
Some had to move home to escape abuse and threats.
One father, Mark Barden, said people desecrated his son Daniel’s grave by “urinating on it and threatening to dig it up.”
In his closing argument, plaintiff’s attorney Chris Mattei said, “When all these families were drowning in grief, Alex Jones put his foot on top.”
Jones – who now acknowledges the massacre was “100 percent real” – insisted he was not responsible for the actions of his followers.
“I’ve said sorry hundreds of times, and I’m done saying sorry,” he said last month in dramatic testimony that brought some in the courtroom to tears. reports the BBC.
He also branded the proceedings a “show trial,” presided over by a “tyrant” judge.
And his lawyer Norm Pattis was severely reprimanded in court after he outrageously accused opposing lawyers of “inventing rage.”
Huge payout
The plaintiffs’ legal team urged the six jurors to award a total of $550 million in damages — one dollar for each of the 550 million views Jones’ vicious insults received between 2012 and 2018.
Mattei asked them to “think about the magnitude of the defamation,” citing as an example Jones’ lie that families had “faked the death of their six- or seven-year-old.”
Yesterday, jurors awarded fifteen separate awards to the fourteen family members and federal agent William Aldenberg who were targeted by the conspiracy theories.
The largest individual award was $120 million for Robbie Parker, father of murdered six-year-old Emilie.
Jones’ attorney Pattis called it a “dark day for freedom of speech.”
He said: “We disagree with the basis of the omission, we disagree with the court’s evidentiary findings. In over two hundred trials over the course of my career, I have never seen such a trial.”
The trial in Connecticut comes two months after a similar case in Texas.
In August, a jury ruled that Jones and his company had to pay $49.3 million to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of 6-year-old Sandy Hook first-grader Jesse Lewis.
Jones also faces a third defamation lawsuit from Sandy Hook in Texas later this year.
But he was defiant on his Infowars show yesterday, vowing to continue spreading conspiracies about other school shootings.
‘They want to scare us away from questions[ing] Uvalde or Parkland,” he raged.
“We are not leaving. We’re not going to stop.”
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