‘Infowars’ host to pay nearly $1 billion to victims
On Wednesday, a Connecticut jury ordered Alex Jones to pay $965 million to families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for spreading lies about the attack.
Six adults and 20 children were killed during the shooting which took place December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut.
During the trial, victims’ families provided emotional testimony in Waterbury Superior Court.
The legal case was brought after Jones told millions of listeners on his Infowars show that the shooting was a hoax. He also repeatedly said the victims were crisis actors hired as part of a scheme to impose gun control laws.
Jones spoke to listeners live while damages were being awarded saying, “they want to scare everybody away from freedom and scare us away from questioning Uvalde—and what really happened there or Parkland or any other event.”
He went on, “And guess what? We’re not scared and we’re not going away and we’re not gonna stop and literally for hundreds of thousands of dollars I can keep them in court for years, I can appeal the stuff, we can stand up against this travesty I guess the billions of dollars they want—it’s a joke.”
This is the second large judgment against Jones. In August, a Texas jury awarded $49.3 million to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis. Their 6-year-old son was killed in the shooting.
A third trial in Texas involving the parents of another gunned down child is due to take place later this year.
