Alex Jones steps outside of the Travis County Courthouse for interviews with media after he was questioned under oath about text messages and emails by lawyer Mark Bankston, in Austin on Aug. 3.POOL/Reuters
U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre $45.2-million in punitive damages – on top of $4.1-million in compensatory damages already awarded – for falsely claiming the shooting was a hoax, a Texas jury decided on Friday.
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, separated parents of slain 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, testified that followers of Jones harassed them and sent them death threats for years in the false belief that they were lying about their son’s death in the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting that killed 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
The 12 jurors decided on the punitive damages one day after determining the compensatory damages following a two-week trial in the defamation lawsuit presided over by Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in state court in the Texas capital of Austin, where Jones’ radio show and far-right webcast Infowars are based.
The parents had sought $145.9-million in punitive damages and $150-million in compensatory damages. Compensatory damages are awarded to cover a plaintiff’s suffering and losses. Punitive damages are awarded to punish a defendant’s actions.
Jones, who has been a prominent figure in American right-wing circles and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, had called the Sandy Hook massacre a U.S. government hoax staged using crisis actors to serve as a pretext for taking away Americans’ guns.
“We ask that you send a very, very simple message, and that is: stop Alex Jones. Stop the monetization of misinformation and lies,” Wesley Todd Ball, a lawyer for the parents, told jurors earlier on Friday before they began deliberations on punitive damages.
Jones sought to distance himself from the conspiracy theories during his testimony, apologizing to the parents and acknowledging that Sandy Hook was “100% real.”
The Sandy Hook gunman, Adam Lanza, used a Remington Bushmaster rifle during the massacre, which ended when he killed himself with the sound of approaching police sirens.
An attorney for Jones, Federico Andino Reynal, had asked jurors to return a verdict of $270,000 in punitive damages based on the number of hours Infowars devoted to Sandy Hook coverage.
Lawyers for both sides did not immediately respond to requests for comment after the verdict.
The judge admonished Jones during the trial for not telling the truth during his testimony about his bankruptcy and lack of compliance with requests for documents.
Attorney Doug Mirell, a defamation litigation expert not involved in the case, said the question of Jones’s truthfulness on the witness stand could have been a factor in the jury’s award of punitive damages, noting that it is unusual for a jury to award significantly more in punitive than compensatory damages.
“The jury may have simply latched on to their revulsion at the lies and decided Mr. Jones is truly a bad actor,” Mirell told Reuters.
Forensic economist Bernard Pettingill testified on Friday on behalf of Lewis’ parents that Jones “promulgated some hate speech and some misinformation” and “made a lot of money.” Jones and Infowars are worth between $135-million and $270-million combined, Pettingill said.
Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems LLC, declared bankruptcy last week. Jones said during a Monday broadcast that the filing will help the company stay on the air while it appeals. The bankruptcy declaration paused a similar defamation suit by Sandy Hook parents in Connecticut where, as in Texas, he has already been found liable.
During closing arguments on Wednesday, Kyle Farrar, a lawyer for the parents, urged the jury to end what he called their nightmare and hold Jones accountable for profiting off their son’s death. Reynal acknowledged during his closing argument that Jones and Infowars reported “irresponsibly” on Sandy Hook but said his client was not responsible for the harassment.
The plaintiffs have accused Jones of approaching the trial in bad faith, citing broadcasts in which he said the proceedings were rigged against him and that the jury pool was full of people who “don’t know what planet they’re on.”
Mark Bankston, an attorney for the parents, revealed on Wednesday that Jones’s legal team had mistakenly shared their client’s phone data, including text messages, from the past two years. Jones had previously said he had searched his phone for such messages and never found any.
Following the verdict, Gamble chastised Jones’s lawyer Reynal after he claimed he had learned of the disclosure while Jones was on the witness stand.
“You’re the one who gave me an e-mail that shows me that you had known about it 12 days earlier,” the judge said.
Our Morning Update and Evening Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.