Alex Jones ordered to pay Sandy Hook parents more than $4 million for claiming the deadliest U.S. school shooting was a hoax 

A Texas jury on Thursday ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay greater than $4 million in compensatory damages to the mother and father of a 6-year-old boy who was killed within the Sandy Hook Elementary College bloodbath, marking the primary time the Infowars host has been held financially answerable for repeatedly claiming the deadliest college capturing in U.S. historical past was a hoax.

The Austin jury should nonetheless determine how a lot the Infowars host should pay in punitive damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse Lewis was among the many 20 kids and 6 educators who have been killed within the 2012 assault in Newtown, Connecticut.

The mother and father had sought not less than $150 million in compensation for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional misery. Jones’ legal professional requested the jury to restrict damages to $8 — one greenback for every of the compensation costs they’re contemplating — and Jones himself mentioned any award over $2 million “would sink us.”

It possible received’t be the final judgment in opposition to Jones over his claims that the assault was staged within the pursuits of accelerating gun controls. A Connecticut choose has dominated in opposition to him in the same lawsuit introduced by different victims’ households and an FBI agent who labored on the case.

The Texas award might set a marker for different circumstances in opposition to Jones and underlines the monetary risk he’s dealing with. It additionally raises new questions concerning the means of Infowars — which has been banned from YouTube, Spotify and Twitter for hate speech — to proceed working, though the corporate’s funds stay unclear.

Jones conceded through the trial that the assault was actual and that he was unsuitable to have lied about it. However Heslin and Lewis informed jurors that an apology wouldn’t suffice and referred to as on them to make Jones pay for the years of struggling he has put them and different Sandy Hook households by.

Jones’ media firm Free Speech Techniques, which is Infowars’ dad or mum firm, filed for chapter through the two-week trial.