A six-person jury in Connecticut announced the verdict of the Alex Jones case and ordered the radio show host to pay $965 million in damages for falsely claiming that the 2012 Sandy Hook School Shooting was a ‘Hoax.’
“The families of eight victims, and an FBI agent who responded to the attack, had sought at least $550m in the defamation trial in Connecticut.
They alleged the right-wing radio host’s misinformation led to a decade of harassment and death threats,” BBC reported on Thursday.
Six-year-old Jesse Heslin was shot dead during the primary school shooting at Sandy Hook in Connecticut, along with nineteen other kids and six adults.
Jesse’s parents, Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin filed a defamation case against the radio host who portrayed the whole incident as a hoax on his show, Infowars.
The Sandy School Elementary shooting took place on December 14, 2012. The incident involved a twenty-year-old boy Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people, including students and staff members.
The Alex Jones Show host from Austin, Texas, has been under harsh criticism for claiming that the federal government staged the massacre and was just a hoax.
As per Daily Mail, The Sandy Hook families sued Jones for his brutal claims and stated that the right-wing conspiracy theorist had benefitted from spreading false claims that were highly insensitive and hurtful to all the parents who lost their children in the attack.
“Sandy Hook is synthetic, completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured,” he said on his Infowars show in 2015.
His show has been entirely removed from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other mainstream platforms; however, it is still on-air on several radio stations.
After a long legal battle and several protests and public hate against him, Jones finally admitted in August 2022 in the Texas court that the shooting wasn’t a hoax.
“Sandy Hooks shooting denier Alex Jones has finally admitted that the most deadly school massacre in American history wasn’t a hoax after 10 years of causing victims’ parents utter misery.”
“The InfoWars host squirmed and sweated in his seat at trial after agreeing it was irresponsible of him to declare the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre a hoax and that he now believes it was ‘100% real.’” Daily Mail reported.
As the verdict was out loud in the court in Waterbury, Connecticut, a few miles away from the school where the tragic incident occurred, the Infowars host went live on his show and said that he doesn’t have any money and called the trial, a fraud.
“Ain’t gonna be happening, ain’t no money,” said Jones. “DO these people actually think they’re getting any of this money?”
“Now remember, I’m in bankruptcy, we’ve got two years of appeals. The money you donate does not go to these people. It goes to fight this fraud, and it goes to stabilize the company.”
“That’s why the analyst chasers did this. Why they use these families.”
While commenting on the amount the court awarded to the families of deceased children, Jones said it was hilarious and called it a ‘total show trial.’
After the verdict, Jones’ lawyers stated that he plans to appeal and would not be able to pay more than $2 million.
Thoughts on the Alex Jones case verdict? Let us know in the comments.
Sources: BBC – Daily Mail
