Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay at least $965 million in damages to numerous families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting for falsely claiming they were actors who faked the tragedy, a Connecticut jury said Wednesday. .
The verdict, which came after three weeks of testimony in state court in Waterbury, Connecticut, far exceeded the $49 million a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay in a similar case in August.
The plaintiffs were family members of 20 children and six staff members who were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. Jones has claimed for years that the massacre was staged as part of a government plot to take away guns from Americans.
Jurors said the plaintiffs should also receive attorneys’ fees, to be determined in November.
Lawyers for the families of eight Sandy Hook victims during closing arguments in Connecticut last week said Jones cashed in for years on lies about the shooting, driving traffic to his Infowars website and boosting sales of his various products.
Alex Jones must pay more than $800 million to the families of eight victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
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Alex Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, must pay close to $1 billion to the families of the eight victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and an F.B.I agent. agent who went to the scene of the 2012 massacre, in which 20 first graders and six educators died.
Mr. Jones had been found liable for defamation after spending years falsely portraying the shooting as a hoax and accusing the families of the victims of being complicit in the plot. As a result, the families were threatened in person and online. He used his Infowars platform to spread these lies.
The jury’s decision split the money among 15 plaintiffs: 14 relatives of eight Sandy Hook victims and William Aldenberg, an F.B.I. agent targeted by conspiracy theorists. Jurors awarded the plaintiffs varying amounts, who considered their testimony and other evidence presented in court to assess damage to their reputations, invasion of their privacy and other factors.
Mr. Jones is pending a third lawsuit for damages from Sandy Hook stemming from a defamation lawsuit he lost to Lenny Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, parents of Noah Pozner. An earlier trial, in the lawsuit brought by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of Jesse Lewis, ended with Mr. Jones being ordered to pay $4 million in compensatory damages and $45.2 million in punitive damages to Mr. Heslin and Mrs. Lewis.
This case presented the greatest financial risk to Mr. Jones because he was found liable for violating the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act by using lies about the shooting to sell products on Infowars. There is no limit to punitive damages under that law.
Source: https://wikisoon.com/
