The families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims from 2012 have been granted $965 million in damages against far-right conspiracy theorist and founder of InfoWars Alex Jones.
A Connecticut jury reached a verdict on the sum on Wednesday after the protracted trial, as reported by Reuters and CNN. Jones asserted repeatedly that the incident, which resulted in the deaths of 27 elementary school students and employees, was a “false flag” operation planned by proponents of stricter gun laws. He labeled the shooting “a giant hoax” that was “completely fake” and accused the families of being “crisis actors.”
In 2018, the victim’s family filed a defamation lawsuit against him for his remarks, which later swelled to include 15 plaintiffs. The choice was made after a Texas jury in August ordered Jones and his business, Free Speech Systems LLC, to pay Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of 6-year-old shooting victim Jesse Lewis, more than $49 million.
Jones later responded after being ordered to pay the $965 million. “They want to scare everybody away from freedom,” he said in a segment on InfoWars. “And scare us from questioning Uvalde and what really happened there, or Parkland or any other event. And Guess what? We’re not scared, and we’re not going away. We’re not going to stop. Literally, for hundreds of thousands of dollars, I can keep them in court for years. I can appeal this stuff.”
He invited his followers to buy nutritional supplements from his online store after calling the entire litigation against him “a joke.” This year, his media business declared bankruptcy.