After a judge found Alex Jones, founder of InfoWars, liable in the defamation suit brought against him by the parents of a 6-year-old Sandy Hook shooting victim, an Austin jury decided the damages in the case amount to $49.2 million.
Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, the parents of Jesse Lewis, who was murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, sued Jones, claiming he defamed victims’ families by claiming the shooting was a hoax, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
A judge issued a default ruling in favor of Lewis and Heslin last October. Last week, attorneys for the parents and Jones presented their cases to the jury tasked with deciding how much the defendant should pay in damages to Lewis and Heslin.
The jury awarded the plaintiffs $4.1 million in compensatory damages and $45.2 million in punitive damages. The award is much lower than the $150 million sought by the plaintiffs but exponentially higher than the $8 suggested by Jones’ attorney.
Jones claimed that the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting, which killed 20 students and six educators, was a government hoax. Jones also claimed the victims’ families were paid actors, part of a “false flag” operation by the Obama administration to precipitate stricter gun control laws.
During the trial, Heslin testified how their lives have become a “living hell” over the last 9 1/2 years “because of the recklessness and negligence of Alex Jones.” The plaintiffs said they received death threats from individuals who believed Jones’ claims.
“We ask that you send a very, very simple message, and that is, stop Alex Jones. Stop the monetization of misinformation and lies. Please,” Wesley Todd Ball, the parents’ attorney, said to the jury in the closing arguments last week, The New York Times reports.
During the trial, Jones acknowledged that the shooting was “100% real” and said it was irresponsible of him to believe it was fake.
He further told his listeners, “I admitted I was wrong. I admitted it was a mistake. I admitted that I followed disinformation but not on purpose. I apologized to the families. And the jury understood that. … What I did to those families was wrong. But I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Jones’ attorney is expected to appeal the amount of the award. “We believe the verdict was excessively harsh,” said Andino Reynal, the defendant’s attorney.
In most civil cases, Texas law caps punitive damages to twice the “economic damages” plus up to $750,000 for each plaintiff. Legal pundits, such as Austin attorney Russ Horton, have said punitive damages will likely be cut to conform to Texas law, either by the judge overseeing this case or by an appeals court, AP News reported.
However, Ball says the “cap” does not apply in this case but did not explain further. The judge overseeing the case, Maya Guerra Gamble, must approve the final amount of the award.
Jones testified that a jury award of $2 million would bankrupt him financially, claiming he had experienced financial difficulties after his content was removed from several social media platforms.
Friday morning, Bernard Pettingill, Jr. — a consulting and forensic economist — estimated the talk show host has a net worth of between $135 million and $270 million.
According to Pettingill, who examined several years of records for Jones and InfoWars’ parent company Free Speech Systems, Jones allegedly used a series of shell companies to hide his money.
When a juror raised a question about the difference between Jones’ money and his company’s money, Pettingill suggested the two are one and the same. “Alex Jones cannot be separated from the corporations,” said Pettingill.” He represents the businesses.”
Jones testified earlier this week about his alleged financial difficulties after removing his content from social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
During closing arguments, Ball claimed that Jones has even more money hidden away in other places and that $4.1 million was merely a drop in the bucket for Jones. “He’s probably already made it back in fan donations,” Ball alleged.
