Far-right Infowars owner faced defamation trial for repeatedly saying the school shooting was a hoax
The jury in Alex Jones’s defamation trial on Thursday ordered the far-right conspiracy theorist to pay $4.1m in damages over his repeated claims that the deadly Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax.
Jurors in Austin, Texas, gave their verdict after deliberating about one hour Wednesday and seven hours Thursday at the end of a nine-days-long trial. The verdict levied against Jones was far below the $150m or more the plaintiffs had requested that jurors award them.
In a statement on behalf of the parents of a six-year old Sandy Hook victim whose lawsuit set the trial in motion, the attorney Mark Bankston said: “Mr Jones … will not sleep easy tonight.”
Bankston said his clients Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis were “thrilled with the result and look forward to putting Mr Jones’s money to good use”.
In a separate phase on Friday, jurors are to determine whether Jones owes any punitive damages in addition to the compensation he was ordered to pay on Thursday. “With punitive damages still to be decided and multiple [other pending legal matters], it is clear that Mr Jones’s time on the American stage is finally coming to an end,” Bankston added.
Heslin and Lewis, whose son Jesse Lewis was killed during the mass shooting, took the stand during the trial and detailed the mental suffering, death threats and harassment they weathered from fringe conservatives after Jones went on the...
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