Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his media company were ordered Wednesday by a Connecticut jury to pay $965 million, plus attorney fees, to a group of families he harassed after they lost loved ones in the Sandy Hook mass shooting.
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The three-week-long trial pinned Jones and Free Speech Systems LLC against more than a dozen relatives of 20 children and six staff members who were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. Jones claimed for years that the massacre was a staged crisis as part of a government plot to take away Americans’ firearms.
Plaintiff Robbie Parker, the father of a slain first-grader, was granted the largest award — $120 million total for defamation plus emotional distress — after making public statements in the wake of the shooting and was thereafter singled out individually by Jones on air.
The amounts awarded were compensatory damages. The jury also determined that attorney fees should be awarded to the plaintiffs as a form of punitive damages, setting a hearing date for November.
Following the verdict, a group of family members spoke outside the courthouse. Erica Lafferty-Hochsprung, the daughter of killed school principal Dawn Hochsprung, said, “There will be more Alex Joneses in this world, but what they learned here today is that they absolutely will be held accountable.”
Most described being emotionally scarred by claims that their young children were still alive or had never actually existed.
Jones himself took the stand during the trial and highlighted that he had previously apologized for promoting ideas that he said he now knows are untrue. However, he did tell plaintiff’s counsel on the stand, that he’s done apologizing for his actions.
In Jones’ press conferences outside the courthouse, he claimed that the trial is just the tip of the iceberg for a much larger plot by politicians to shutter independent media.
The jury also heard Infowars employees describe Jones’ alarming outbursts of anger in the office, his commitment to pushing conspiracy narratives, the large amounts of money Infowars’ shop made on high viewership days and the company’s push to “emulate spikes” in engagement and viewership that would increase sales.
Prior to the trial, Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis entered a default judgment holding Jones and Infowars — whose legal name is Free Speech Systems LLC — liable after Jones refused to meaningfully engage in discovery with the plaintiffs. The jury’s duty was only to decide how much he and Infowars owed, if anything, for allegedly amplifying the harassment and stalking.
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Source: https://www.law360.com/articles/1536737
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