Alex Jones Ordered to Pay $4.1M To Parents of Sandy Hook Victims

Infamous Infowars host Alex Jones has promoted multiple conspiracy theories during his time in the public eye. They include that 9/11 was an inside job, Pizzagate and that the Oklahoma City bombing was a false flag, among other conspiracies.

Conspiracy mogul Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $4.1 million in damages to the parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook massacre after repeatedly claiming that the shooting was a hoax and that victims and their families were paid “crisis actors.”

The jurors deliberated for about an hour before coming to their verdict. Jones may be ordered to pay more in punitive damages in a hearing scheduled for Friday.

The $4.1 million sum was far less than the plaintiffs asked for, $150 million, but they were still satisfied with the verdict. The plaintiff’s lawyer, Mark Bankston said the couple was “thrilled with the result and look forward to putting Mr Jones’ money to good use.”

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis lost their six-year-old, Jesse Lewis, in the tragedy.

For years, Jones promoted the conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged and its victims were crisis actors. He said no one died in the attack and that it was fabricated to promote gun legislation. During the trial, he admitted that the attack was “100% real,” a conclusion he says he came to after meeting the parents during the trial.

Jones’ attorney asked the jurors to limit the damages to $1, despite revelations during the trial that InfoWars, Jones’ most popular outlet, made more than $800,000 in a single day several times over the past years.

The trial’s intention was to determine how much in damages Jones would have to pay to Heslin and Lewis. His guilt had already been determined back in October of last year after Jones failed to respond to their lawsuit and Jones lost by default. A similar case in Connecticut was also ignored by Jones, resulting in a default judgment there as well.

While Jones was on the stand, Bankston revealed that Jones’ lawyer had accidentally sent him everything on the conservative talk show host’s phone from the past two years, and that even after being informed of this, his lawyer neglected to claim any of it as privileged information, allowing it to be submitted as evidence. He then revealed that the phone contained text messages about Sandy Hook, contradicting claims Jones made under oath.

In what is sure to be the iconic moment of this trial, on par with O.J. Simpson trying on the glove or Erik Menendez smiling at the camera, Bankston asked Jones: “You know what perjury is, right?”

“Do you know what perjury is?” pic.twitter.com/awbBpVf4Tl

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 3, 2022

Jones called the revelation Bankston’s “Perry Mason moment,” a reference to the Perry Mason television series that ran in the 1950s and 60s in which the titular character who was a lawyer would often make dramatic reveals near the end of trials that would turn the tide of the case.