AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – A Texas jury on Friday ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $45.2 million in punitive damages to the parents of a boy who was killed in the elementary school massacre from Sandy Hook, adding to the $4.1 million he must pay. the ordeal that put them through claiming for years that the nation’s deadliest school shooting was a hoax.
The $49.3 million total is less than the $150 million sought by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 children and six educators killed in the attack of 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut. But the trial is the first time Jones has been held financially responsible for spreading lies about the massacre, claiming it was faked by the government to tighten gun laws.
Afterward, Lewis said Jones, who was not in the courtroom to hear the verdict, has been held responsible. She said that when she took the stand and looked Jones in the eye, she thought of her son, who is credited with saving lives by yelling “run” when the killer stopped in his rampage.
“He stood up to the bully Adam Lanza and saved the lives of nine of his teammates,” Lewis said. “I hope I’ve done justice with that incredible courage when I was able to stand up to Alex Jones, who is also a bully. I hope this inspires others to do the same.”
It could be a while before plaintiffs collect anything. Jones’ lead attorney, Andino Reynal, told the judge he will appeal and ask the courts to dramatically reduce the size of the verdict.
After the hearing, Reynal said he believes the penalty amount will be reduced to as little as $1.5 million.
“We think the verdict was too high. … Alex Jones is going to be on the air today, he’s going to be on the air tomorrow, he’s going to be on the air next week. He’s going to continue to do his job of making the power structure be responsible.”
Jones’ businesses and personal wealth could also be cut by other lawsuits and bankruptcies. Another defamation lawsuit against Jones by a Sandy Hook family will begin preliminary hearings in the same Austin court on Sept. 14. He faces another defamation lawsuit in Connecticut.
The plaintiffs’ attorney, Mark Bankston, said he believes he can challenge any attempt to reduce the damages. But he said even if the award is cut dramatically, it’s just as important to bring the large verdict to bankruptcy court so the family can claim against Jones’ estate and company.
Jones stated this week that any award over $2 million would “sink us.” His company Free Speech Systems, which is the parent company of Austin-based Infowars, filed for bankruptcy protection during the first week of the trial.
Punitive damages are intended to punish defendants for particularly heinous conduct, over and above the monetary compensation awarded to the people they injured. A high punitive award is also seen as an opportunity for juries to send a broader social message and a way to deter others from the same heinous conduct in the future.
Barry Covert, a First Amendment attorney in Buffalo, New York, with no connection to the Jones case, said the total damages awarded amount to “a stunning loss for Jones.”
“At $50 million in total, the jury has sent a huge, strong message that this behavior will not be tolerated,” Covert said. “Anyone with a show like this who knowingly tells lies – juries won’t tolerate it.”
Future jurors in other pending Sandy Hook trials could look to the damage amounts in this case as a benchmark, Covert said. If other jurors do, Covert said, “it could put Jones out of business.”
The family’s lawyers had urged jurors to hand down a financial penalty that would force Infowars to shut down.
“You have the ability to prevent this man from doing this again,” Wesley Ball, an attorney for the parents, told the jury Friday. “Send the message to those who want to do the same: speech is free. Lies, you pay.”
One economist stated that Jones and company are worth as much as $270 million.
Bernard Pettingill, who was hired by the plaintiffs to look into Jones’ net worth, said records show Jones withdrew $62 million for himself in 2021, when default judgments were issued in the lawsuits against him.
“That number represents, in my opinion, a net worth,” Pettingill said. “He has money in a bank account somewhere.”
But Jones’ lawyers said their client had already learned his lesson. They argued for a punitive amount of less than $300,000.
“You’ve already sent a message. A message for the first time to a talk show host, to all talk show hosts, that their level of attention needs to change,” Reynal said.
Friday’s damage was praised by the American Federation of Teachers union, which represented Sandy Hook teachers.
“Nothing will ever fix the pain of losing a child, or seeing that tragedy denied for political reasons. But I’m glad the Sandy Hook parents got some justice,” union president Randi Weingarten said in a tweet.
Attorneys for the Sandy Hook families suing Jones say he has tried to hide evidence of his true wealth in several shell companies.
During his testimony, Jones was confronted with a memo from one of his business managers outlining a single day’s gross revenue of $800,000 from the sale of vitamin supplements and other products through his website , which would approach nearly $300 million in a year. Jones called it a record sales day.
Jones, who has described the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights, admitted during the trial that the attack was “100 percent real” and that he was wrong to have lied about it. But Heslin and Lewis told jurors that an apology would not be enough and asked them to make Jones pay for the years of suffering he has put them and other Sandy Hook families through.
The parents told jurors they have endured a decade of trauma, first inflicted by their son’s killing and what followed: shots fired at home, online and phone threats and street harassment by strangers. They said the threats and harassment were fueled by Jones and his conspiracy theory spread to his followers through Infowars.
A forensic psychiatrist testified that the parents suffer from “complex post-traumatic stress disorder” caused by ongoing trauma, similar to what a soldier at war or a victim of child abuse might experience.
Throughout the trial, Jones was his typically bombastic self, talking about conspiracies on the witness stand, during impromptu press conferences and on his show. His erratic behavior is unusual by courtroom standards, and the judge reprimanded him, telling him at one point: “This is not your show.”
The trial also drew attention from outside Austin.
Bankston told the court Thursday that the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol uprising has requested records on Jones’ phone that Jones’ lawyers mistakenly turned over to plaintiffs . Bankston later said he planned to comply with the committee’s request.
On Friday, Bankston said, he had “a subpoena sitting on my desk” from the Jan. 6 committee. But he said he had to “repress expectations” that it might reveal texts about the insurgency, as data appears to have been deleted in the mid-2020s.
Bankston said he has also had interest in phone data for “law enforcement” but declined to elaborate.
Last month, the House committee showed graphic and violent text messages and played videos of right-wing figures, including Jones, and others promising that Jan. 6 would be the day they fight Trump.
The committee first subpoenaed Jones in November, demanding a deposition and documents related to his efforts to spread misinformation about the 2020 election and a rally on the day of the attack.
___
Associated Press writer Michael Tarm in Chicago and Susan Haigh in Norwich, Conn., contributed to this report.
___
Find complete AP coverage of the Alex Jones trial at: