AUSTIN, Texas – A Texas grand jury on Thursday awarded the parents of a child killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary more than $4 million in damages from attorneys general. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, he was first held financially responsible for smearing the victim’s parents by spreading false information that they were complicit in a government plot to make the shooting a reality. as an excuse for gun control.
The decision is the first in a series of potential awards against Mr Jones. On Friday, a jury will review evidence of Mr Jones’s net worth to determine the amount of punitive damages to parents Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, if any.
Two more court hearings by Sandy Hook’s parents seeking damages from Mr Jones are scheduled for next month, though they could be delayed because of his company. filed for bankruptcy last week.
Mr. Jones has become increasingly emblematic of how misinformation and false stories have gained traction in American society. He has played a role in spreading some of the most sinister conspiracy theories in recent history, such as Pizzagate – where an Infowars video helped inspire a gunman to attack a pizzeria in Washington, DC – as well as coronavirus myths and “Stop Thieves” lies about voter fraud elected before the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021.
The verdict came after days of emotional testimony, including 90 minutes on Tuesday when Ms Lewis personally spoke to Mr Jones, asking him why he knowingly lied about the death of her child, Jesse , 6 years old, who died along with the first 19 others. 12th graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
“Jesse is a real boy. And I’m a real mother,” Ms Lewis told Mr Jones. She then reminded him: “Alex, I want you to hear this. We are more polarized than ever as a nation. Part of that is up to you. “
But the most explosive revelation came on Wednesday, when the family’s attorney, Mark Bankston, revealed that Mr Jones’ legal team mistakenly sent him the entire contents of Mr. Jones’ phone, which includes at least two years’ worth of incriminating text messages that are currently in the interest of the House Committee investigating the Capitol attack. The committee is looking into Mr Jones’ role in planning the events surrounding the uprising, and Mr Bankston is currently seek the judge’s approval to turn over written records to prosecutors and the commission on January 6.
Ms. Lewis and Mr. Heslin have asked for $150 million in damages, and Mr Bankston said he was optimistic about what the jury would award on Friday. “You can imagine that if the jury returned a judgment in excess of $4 million to the punitive damages, I think the penalty would probably be that or higher,” Mr. Bankston said. “I think it’s entirely possible to expect that we’ll see a nine-figure verdict against Mr Jones.”
He added: “It’s been a long journey, and it’s really, really cool to be able to go back and look at my client, and say ‘he can’t take his eyes off this. He can not. You have a defendant who walked into that courtroom and said, ‘I think I have to pay them a dollar.’ And this jury said no.”
Mr. Jones said in the bankruptcy filing that he has paid $15 million to date in legal costs for the Sandy Hook lawsuit. Citing damages claimed by Ms Lewis and Mr Heslin, Mr Jones called the award a “huge win” in a video posted on Infowars on Thursday night, even as he urged viewers to buy the product. from his website to prevent what he is portraying as financial ruin.
“I admit I was wrong,” he said. “I admit it was a mistake. I admit that I followed misinformation but to no avail. I apologized to my family. And the jury understood that.”
Mr. Jones has lost a Sandy Hook’s defamatory suit series defaulted last year after repeatedly failing to provide documents and court-ordered testimony. Those rulings set the stage for a trial this summer.
More important than money, says the family of Sandy Hook, is society’s judgment on culture in which virus misinformation takes a toll on lives and ruin your reputation.
“Words are free, but lies you pay for,” Mr Bankston told the jury last week. “This is a case of making a change.”
At the heart of the trial was a June 2017 episode of NBC’s “Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly.” Mr. Jones profile. During the broadcast, Mr. Heslin protested Mr. Jones’ denial of the shooting. He recalled his final moments with Jesse, saying, “I held my son with a bullet hole through his head.”
Mr Jones and Owen Shroyer, an Infowars host, then aired shows that implied Mr. Heslin was lying.
“Will there be a clear explanation from Heslin or Megyn Kelly?” Mr. Shroyer told Infowars. “I won’t hold your breath.”
During the trial, Mr. Jones’ attorney, F. Andino Reynal, said that Mr. Jones was essentially running his own defense. After being uncertain as to whether the conspirator would testify, he was adamant that he would appear as the sole witness to defend himself.
Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis deployed a range of experts. The trial opened with testimony from Dan Jewiss, a retired Connecticut State Police investigator who led the Sandy Hook case; a forensic psychiatrist and psychologist who treated Mr. Heslin and Mrs. Lewis; and several Infowars employees, whose dubious statements allowed the family’s attorney to present damaging evidence against Mr. Jones, including a televised version of the full interview with Mr. Ms. Kelly, in which Mr. Jones made false statements.
Jones’ audience and respective sales have grown dramatically, to more than $50 million per year, in the decade since Sandy Hook.
His defense of the Second Amendment after the mass shooting drew attention from mainstream news organizations. But it was Mr. Jones’ alliance with former President Donald J. Trump, who appeared on Infowars in December 2015, that catapulted him from the far right edge to the center of Republican populism.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Trump frequently repeated the same explosively false claims, including the racist “bisexual” lie that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States; that Muslims in the New York area were “celebrating” the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; and the misconduct of the 2020 election that brought violence to the Capitol last year.
