Jury orders Infowars host Alex Jones to pay nearly ONE BILLION DOLLARS in damages to Sandy Hook families for calling massacre a hoax – the highest defamation payout EVER
- Infowars host Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $965million dollars in compensation
- It is the largest defamation suit damages in US history, surpassing a 1997 case where a brokerage firm sued won $222.7million
- Jones was found liable to pay $49.3million during his first trial in Austin, with a jury returning the total sum in August
- He responded to the massive sum by ranting live on Infowars, where he branded the verdict as a ‘joke’
Jurors in Alex Jones’ has been ordered to pay nearly a billion dollars to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.
The Infowars host repeatedly claimed that the 2012 massacre, which left 20 students and six teachers dead, was a ‘hoax’ and had been ‘staged’.
A six-person jury has ruled that he will be liable to pay $965million to the 15 plaintiffs which include families and a FBI agent.
It is the largest defamation suit damages in US history, surpassing a 1997 case where a brokerage firm sued the Wall Street Journal and won $222.7million.
The amount combines the damages for defamation, slander and emotional distress, with Jones ordered to pay a huge sum to the parents Jesse Heslin who died in the attack.
He was found liable to pay $49.3million during his first trial in Austin, with a jury returning the total sum in August.
Jones, who did not attend the hearing, filed for bankruptcy with his main company, Free Speech Systems, midway through his first two week trial.
He responded to the massive sum by ranting live on Infowars, where he branded the verdict as a ‘joke’.
Jones has already lost this trial by default and the jury is simply deciding how much he will pay out to the families of the victims
The families of the victims showed little emotion as the verdicts were read out in the largest defamation suit damages in US history
Jones repeatedly claimed that the 2012 massacre, which left 20 students and six teachers dead, was a ‘hoax’ and had been ‘staged’
The conspiracy theorist said that the verdict was meant to ‘scare’ people and said he can ‘keep them in court for years’.
He added: ‘They want to scare us away from questioning Uvalde or Parkland. We’re not going away. We’re not going to stop.’
While broadcasting live he thanked his ‘supporters’, adding that he was trying to ‘climb out of the red’ and started plugging ‘vitermineral fusion’ from the Infowars store.
Jones previously bashed the trial as a ‘kangaroo court,’ described it as an affront to free speech rights, and called the judge a ‘tyrant.’
His lawyer told the jury that any damages awarded should be minimal.
One plaintiff had his head in his hands as the jury read out the multi-million dollar suit, while Jones went live and ranted on InfoWars
Family members of some of the 26 children and staff who were killed in the massacre piled into the courtroom for the final day of the trial
Jurors revisited the testimony from William Sherlach, whose wife Mary Sherlack was among those killed, earlier in the day.
All of the plaintiffs testified about being harassed by people who say the shooting was staged in a plot for more gun control.
Bill told the hearing that he worried for his and his family´s safety because of the shooting deniers’ vitriol and saw posts online which claimed his wife didn’t exist.
The posts also said the shooting was a hoax, and that she didn’t have the credentials to be a psychologist.
Jones spent years calling the slayings a total hoax but has rowed back on his claims admitting during his Texas trial that they were ‘100 per cent real’.
But just last week he referred to the horror as ‘synthetic’, and repeatedly claiming that his entire trial was ‘rigged’.
Both Jones and Infowars has lost a series of civil lawsuits by default in Texas and Connecticut after judges ruled that he failed to respond to discovery.
Prosecutors asked that Jones pay $550 million to the group, with Chris Mattei, the plaintiffs attorney asking jurors to ‘think about the scale of the defamation’ – pointing out that Jones’ claimed families ‘faked their 6- or 7-year-old’s death.’
Jones’ defense attorney Norm Pattis told jurors it was not their job to bankrupt Jones so he would stop broadcasting lies.
He faces a third, and final, trial that could result in hefty damages again being award.
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