A Texas jury on Friday ordered far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $45.2 million in punitive damages in a lawsuit brought by the parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.
The additional damages came a day after the same jury awarded $4.1 million in compensatory damages to Scarlett Lewis and Neil Hesslin, bringing the total payout to nearly $50 million, although that could be reduced because Texas state law limit non-economic damages.
Jones, a far-right media operative, has stirred controversy for years at InfoWars, his website and radio show. The Sandy Hook cases represent the first significant financial threat to Jones and his company — which are worth a combined estimated $270 million, according to an expert witness who testified on behalf of the parents.
Wesley Ball, a lawyer for the parents, on Friday urged jurors to “send a message” with the punitive damages award: “Stop Alex Jones, stop monetizing misinformation and lies.”
“I’m asking with your judgment not only to reject Alex Jones’ platform that he’s talking about,” Ball added. “Please make sure he can’t recover this platform.”
Lewis and Heslin, whose 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was killed in Sandy Hook, sought $150 million in damages for emotional distress, saying their lives had been made a “living hell” by strangers who sent them death threats and who mistakenly believed the couple had faked their child’s death based on Jones’ comments.
They sued Jones for falsely claiming that the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 children and six adults were killed, was a hoax staged to justify gun control.
During his testimony, Jones denied false claims aired by his companies about the deadliest US school shooting, saying it was “100 percent true” and not a “false flag” operation. He also expressed remorse for “unintentionally” hurting people’s sentiments.
Jones faces two more trials related to his comments about Sandy Hook. One is being delivered to Connecticut by the families of eight victims, and the other will also be in Texas.
Jones, whose content has been banned by major social media platforms for hate speech, has a large audience of more than 8 million monthly visits, according to data company Similarweb.
Last week, Jones’ Free Speech Systems, the parent of InfoWars, filed for bankruptcy protection in a move potentially intended to limit its financial exposure.
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During the proceedings, a lawyer for the plaintiffs revealed that Jones’ legal team had inadvertently shared two years of messages from his phone, adding that he had received requests to share the messages with various authorities, including the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol USA in 2021
On Friday, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble said she would not prevent the plaintiffs’ lawyers from sharing the messages with law enforcement or a congressional committee starting Jan. 6.
Additional reporting by Alex Barker
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