A Connecticut civil jury on Wednesday ordered Alex Jones to pay $965 million to the families of children killed in the Sandy Hook massacre and an FBI agent who responded, the second multimillion dollar award the Infowars founder was hit with for repeatedly claiming that the 2012 massacre was a hoax.
The jury began deliberating Thursday afternoon and through Tuesday. Jones was found liable for damages last year; the panel’s job was to determine how much Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, would be liable to pay victims’ relatives and the FBI agent.
Plaintiffs testified about torment and harassment they suffered from people who believed that one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history was staged to support gun laws, a theory Jones had repeatedly peddled on “Infowars.”
In August, a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages and $45.2 million in punitive damages to the family of 6-year-old Sandy Hook victim Jesse Lewis. Plaintiffs Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, his parents, said Jones’ claims made their lives a “living hell.” Jones admitted that he now believes the shooting was “100% real.”
It was during the Texas damages trial that the entire contents of Jones’ phone was sent to plaintiffs’ attorneys – presumably in error. That caught the interest of the Jan. 6 Committee, which wanted to subpoena Jones’ text messages and emails for their Capitol riot investigation. The committee previously subpoenaed Jones in Nov. 21 and has been looking into his media support of the Jan. 6 riot and his relationship with Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes.
The jury ordered Jones to pay $120 million plaintiff Robbie Parker, father of 6-year-old Emilie Parker, $55 million to David Wheeler and $54 million to Francine Wheeler, parents of 6-year-old Benjamin Wheeler, $57.6 million to Mark Barden & $28.8 million to Jackie Barden, parents of 7-year-old Daniel Barden and $73.6 million to Nicole Hockley and $81.6 million to Ian Hockley, parents of 6-year-old Dylan Hockley.
If the $965 million award were to withstand appeals and the discretion of judges, it could rank among the largest civil lawsuit outcomes in American history. It would come nowhere near the $206 billion that the four largest U.S. tobacco companies agreed to pay in a 1998 settlement, and is still dwarfed by BP’s $20 billion settlement for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A Texas jury in 2011 awarded the family of a man who was horribly burned as a child $150 billion – though that award was largely symbolic, as the family knew it would never collect.
