Alex Jones ordered to pay nearly $1 billion to Sandy Hook families - The Washington Post

Within hours of the shooting, Jones was telling his assemblage that it was staged arsenic a pretext for confiscating guns. Within days, helium began to suggest that grieving parents were actors. In the years that followed, helium repeatedly said the massacre was faked.

The families testified during the proceedings that the lies dispersed by Jones led to harassment and threats by conspiracy theorists who person accused them of faking their ain children’s deaths. They described feeling unsafe successful their homes and hypervigilant successful public. Some of the families moved distant from Newtown.

The largest azygous grant of $120 cardinal went to Robbie Parker, whose six-year-old girl Emilie was killed successful the shooting. Jones spent years mocking Parker arsenic an actor. The plaintiffs besides included a FBI cause who responded to the shooting. He was awarded $90 cardinal successful damages.

After the unanimous verdict was announced, the household members gathered extracurricular the courthouse and thanked the jury.

“The information matters,” said Erica Lafferty, the girl of Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, the main of Sandy Hook Elementary who was killed astatine the school. “Those who nett disconnected different people’s symptom and trauma volition wage for what they’ve done.”

The size of the damages awarded is simply a motion that the jurors recovered Jones’s behaviour peculiarly reprehensible and harmful. Immediately aft the verdict was announced, Jones told his assemblage helium would entreaty the decision.

The damages announced connected Wednesday are meant to compensate the victims for reputational harm and affectional distress. A justice volition determine connected punitive damages adjacent month.

Eugene Volokh, a instrumentality prof astatine the University of California Los Angeles and an adept connected the First Amendment, said helium could not callback different defamation lawsuit with damages of this size.

“It does nonstop a connection that juries attraction astir estimation and attraction astir lies — particularly erstwhile they’re astir radical who are sympathetic,” said Voklokh. “It’s hard to get much sympathetic” than the Sandy Hook families.

The Connecticut lawsuit is 1 of 3 defamation suits filed against Jones by relatives of the victims, who person said that they anticipation to forestall different families from enduring akin abuse.

In August, a assemblage successful a antithetic lawsuit successful Texas said Jones indispensable wage nearly $50 million to the parents of Jesse Lewis, a six-year-old killed successful Sandy Hook. The existent payout, however, volition beryllium acold smaller owed to authorities limits connected specified awards.

Jones is simply a reckless purveyor of conspiracy theories and a prominent protagonist of erstwhile President Trump, who has returned the praise. “Your estimation is amazing,” Trump told Jones successful precocious 2015 arsenic helium ramped up his run for the presidency. “I won’t fto you down.”

Earlier this year, arsenic Jones faced aggregate defamation suits, helium acknowledged successful tribunal that the wide shooting astatine Sandy Hook was “100 percent real” and expressed immoderate regret for his statements. But past month, helium erstwhile again told his audience that radical were close to rise questions astir the massacre, saying, “I don’t truly cognize what truly happened there.”

Jones refused to stock important grounds – including fiscal records and information connected postulation to his websites – with the plaintiffs successful the Connecticut lawsuit successful usurpation of his ineligible obligations. Judge Barbara Bellis entered a default judgement against him holding him liable for defamation. The jury’s lone task, Bellis said as deliberations began, was to find “the grade of the harm.”

The authorities of Jones’s finances is murky. In the Texas trial, Bernard Pettingill, a forensic economist hired by the plaintiffs, estimated that Jones and his companies person a nett worthy of up to $270 million. Pettingill besides said Jones withdrew $62 cardinal successful 2021.

Jones has said his businesses are struggling: earlier this year, Infowars and its genitor institution Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy protection.

During his grounds past month, Jones was mostly unrepentant. When Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the families, told Jones to amusement much respect for the relatives successful the courtroom, Jones lashed out.

“Is this a conflict session? Are we successful China?” Jones said, a notation to Maoist-era rallies utilized to denounce and humiliate. “I’ve already said I’m atrocious hundreds of times, and I’m done saying I’m sorry.”

Over the past month, each the 15 plaintiffs – relatives of 8 of the victims and an FBI cause – testified astatine the trial. They described receiving threats and hatred message from conspiracy theorists who believed they were “crisis actors.”

Francine Wheeler, whose 6-year-old son, Ben, was killed astatine Sandy Hook, spoke astir however hoaxers seized connected her vocation arsenic a vocalist and performer to dispersed sinister theories astir the family. They besides circulated a photograph of a choir show by her older son, who had survived the shooting, to suggest that nary children had been killed astatine the school.

“It is 1 happening to suffer a child,” said Wheeler. “It’s rather different happening erstwhile radical instrumentality everything astir your lad who is gone, and your surviving child, and your husband, and everything you ever did successful your beingness connected the net and harass you.”

Parker’s girl Emilie was killed successful the shooting. He was the archetypal genitor to talk publically successful the aftermath of the massacre. Just earlier Parker made an anguished connection to the media, helium gave a little tense grin arsenic helium saw the assembled journalists. Jones seized connected the infinitesimal arsenic grounds of the purported hoax, playing the seconds-long clip again and again successful the years aft the shooting.

Parker described the shame helium felt for the harassment faced by the families, believing that helium had someway “brought this connected everybody.” Parker’s dependable trembled and his assemblage shook arsenic helium told the tribunal that helium inactive feels a consciousness of responsibility, adjacent though logically helium knows that it was not his fault.

William Aldenberg, a erstwhile FBI agent, responded to the country of the shooting connected Dec. 14, 2012. He excessively became a people of conspiracy theories.

Mattei, the lawyer for the families, asked Aldenberg if what helium saw successful the schoolhouse that time was fake. “No, no. No sir,” helium responded. Mattei asked if determination were immoderate actors there. “No,” Aldenberg said, flooded with emotion. “It’s awful, awful.”

“Their children got slaughtered,” Aldenberg said, addressing the families. “I saw it myself, and present they person to beryllium present and perceive to maine accidental this."