In 2012, a mass murderer killer 20 children and six adults in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. In the years that followed this tragedy, Alex Jones and his InfoWars cohorts spread the conspiracy that the mass shooting was a false flag operation, a government op with the objective of “taking away people’s guns,” and that those children weren’t really dead. It was macabre and vile, and it had real-world implications, as Jones’s unhinged supporters began traveling to Sandy Hook to harass the parents of the murdered children. Many of those parents decided to sue Alex Jones. Over the summer, the dam broke in the first of the lawsuits, one brought by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of Jesse Lewis. Jones’s lawyer “accidentally” sent all of Jones’s phone data to the plaintiff’s legal team, which led to Jones perjuring himself multiple times on the stand. For that one civil trial, with one family, Jones was ordered to pay $49.3 million in punitive and compensatory damages. Following that, Jones was back in court in Connecticut, facing down eight families who had sued him for defamation. The jury’s decision just came down on Wednesday and holy sh-t. $965 million spread out among eight families.
A Connecticut jury ordered Infowars founder Alex Jones to pay $965 million in damages to the families of eight victims of the Sandy Hook shooting for the suffering caused by years of lies that the massacre was a hoax.
Wednesday’s verdict marks the largest award to date in a multi-pronged legal battle by the families to hold Jones responsible for circulating falsehoods about the 2012 mass shooting where 20 children and six educators were killed in an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
Within hours of the shooting, Jones was telling his audience that it was staged as a pretext for confiscating guns. Within days, he began to suggest that grieving parents were actors. In the years that followed, he repeatedly said the massacre was faked.
The families testified during the trial that the lies spread by Jones led to harassment and threats by conspiracy theorists who have accused them of faking their own children’s deaths. They described feeling unsafe in their own homes and hypervigilant in public. Some of the families moved away from Newtown.
The largest single award of $120 million went to Robbie Parker, whose six-year-old daughter Emilie was killed in the shooting. Jones spent years mocking Parker as an actor. The plaintiffs also included a FBI agent who responded to the shooting and was awarded $90 million in damages.
The size of the damages is a sign that jurors found a defendant’s conduct particularly reprehensible and harmful – and as a way of deterring future wrongdoing.
I agree that “the size of the damages is a sign that jurors found a defendant’s conduct particularly reprehensible and harmful – and as a way of deterring future wrongdoing.” I also think it was specific to Alex Jones too – if he had been a smoother operator and less of a sweaty, panicked, lying meatball, he would not be punished to this extent. I know that’s horrible to admit, but it’s true. I wish there was some way to punish all of the people “radicalized” by Alex Jones and InfoWars too, the people who actually went to Sandy Hook to personally harass grieving families, the people who would rather believe Alex Jones, one of the dumbest f–king con artists out there.
Screencaps courtesy of August trial/MSNBC.
He’s in the FO stage of FAFO and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving person. Total scum.
But the infuriating thing is he is mentally incapable of “finding out.” He’ll just declare bankruptcy and start grifting millions from his idiot followers all over again. He has ridiculed the trial itself nonstop on his show as it played out in real time. *Maybe* this verdict will deter the next person, but Alex Jones is incapable of learning any lesson.
But didn’t he try to hide a bunch of money in his companies but the SH families sued his companies too? He’ll just keep appealing it but I really hope this monster goes broke.
Jones is proof monsters exist. Look under the bed tonight.
He cannot declare bankruptcy under these circumstances, though.
Honest question from a non American….when these enormous sums are awarded to defendants in a case, what do they realistically receive? If the guilty part doesn’t have that amount of cash what happens? Does the guilty party then get sent to jail? Are they stripped of every single asset they own to pay the amount awarded or even a portion of it?
Are the amounts awarded realistic or just a number picked out of the air? If the second, what is the point? I’m genuinely mystified….
legal judgements of this sort cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
every dime this man makes for the rest of his life can be garnished to pay this judgement.
He should have gotten a long prison sentence.
Horrid human being, same as TRUMP!
Oh yeah – if there was a way to track everyone who wanted to send money to him or his company (including through purchases) and earmark that money for his victims, that’d be great. Because he’s clearly going to use this as a platform to bray about ‘free speech’ and ‘political correctness gone mad’ and yada yada yada, and rake in more money.
He already is.
Yes there is a way to track that, it’s called a receivership and in terms of his businesses that were defendants it will basically will step in and funnel away all of the incoming money until the judgment is paid.
Absolutely the right verdict, but is there any way that amount will actually get paid?
I heard on one news show this morning that there’s actually an industry that pays people like the families and will then go after Jones for it – they’ll use investigative muscle to find and acquire any assets, past present and future.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.
A judge will determine based on what he actually has. Hopefully his stashes are figured out as well.
I want them to take EVERYTHING from that person. His deviance and wicked lies piled trauma, upon trauma, upon trauma onto those families. The harassment that they face is heartbreaking and disgusting. People going to their homes, they peed on the graves of those babies. Peed. On. Their. Graves.
I hope that his minions face consequences as well. Alex Jones show be in prison for what he has done.
I agree that he should be in prison. He should be left with nothing but he’ll continue to live the high life and the justice system will not do enough to make him pay up. These scum always avoid it somehow. The man exemplifies true evil.
Everything you just said @girl_ninja.
Good verdict and a good beginning to many other people being owed millions due to this cruddy A-hole. It’s sort of frustrating that it needs to come a trial in the first place, and who knows what would have happened if his lawyer hadn’t accidentally shared the sleazy insider info on AJ.
KARMA!!! Attacking families who have lost their children is just wrong. He deserves it.
My youngest was 6 years old when this shooting happened. I remember the police presence outside her elementary school the next day, just to show solidarity and try to make the parents and teachers feel a little bit safer bringing their kids to school after a massacre. I dropped her off and balled my eyes out on the way back to my car because my sweet baby was alive and those poor parents didnt have their angels anymore.
I had extended family in Newtown. None of them were victims, but all of them knew someone affected.
I hope he loses everything and just falls out of existence. He has done nothing but make the worst moments of people’s lives fodder for crazies to continue victimizing heartbroken victims. To even call that thing scum or even human is wrong. He’s worse than all that. Hope he rots.
I was in line at Target that day. The woman in front of me – with a cart full of christmas goodies for a little kid – got a text that there was a shooting at her child’s school and she ran. I don’t know if that child was injured, but it brings me to tears thinking about it even now (literally right now).
Of all the trouble Obama dealt with, I think this event–and not getting gun control through afterwards–was his most heartbreaking regret.
Thank you to the jury. I hope he looses everything and is left braying into the wind. He is the vilest of the vile.
The most fitting punishment I can image for this stinking lump of manure is to place him in complete isolation for the rest of his days. No human contact, no audience, nobody to con or bully or grift- just him and his own toxic narcissism , together forever, surrounded by complete indifference.
Hoofratn. Amen!!!!!
I’ve been dancing since yesterday lol.
I still think the amount is low. This man did worst by this country and those folks who lost loved one and babies. Babies.
Reagan letting the Fairness Doctrine lapse is just another reminder why I still hate him while he rots in hell
He needs a car bomb. Problem solved .
Tiffany–cosign to that. Not renewing the FD was catastrophic.
I’m so damn tired about hearing from the right that this is an attack on free speech. This is about consequences and accountability. His words directly led his rabid fanbase to attack and terrorize the Sandy Hook families, threatening them, desecrating their loved ones graves, while he capitalized on their grief. NO ONE AND NO AGENCY stopped him from spreading his bullshit. So NO, you dumb a–hole, this isn’t about free speech. You had your say and you are being held accountable.
I don’t know if he personally declared bankruptcy, but his company has and he’s gleefully bragging about this. I hope they seize and liquidate all his assets, put a lien on any future earnings and assets — squeeze every drop of blood out of this unrepentant a**hole until he’s forced to wander the streets, begging on his hands and knees for mercy. That is my wish for this monster.
I am so sick and tired of hearing that tripe from people who claim to be “patriots” but don’t even understand WHAT the essence of the First Amendment is.
freedom of speech does NOT mean freedom from consequences. it doesn’t mean you get to say whatever you want with no reactions from people, or that you get to say whatever you want with no consequences.
Thank you for this. I add nothing, except my additional hatred for the idiot cultists screaming their excuses for yet more reprehensible and illegal behavior. Nothing is too low.
Slander and libel aren’t protected under freedom of speech, and that’s what he did. They’re hard to prove in the U.S. — which I think is good — but it is blatantly obviously that he knowingly lied about these people, that he spread the lies far and wide, and that the lies harmed them.
I’m a free speech fanatic, comparatively, but libel and slander (and fraud, which Alex Jones also perpetrates) harm freedom of speech, they don’t help it.
I’m so damn tired about hearing from the right that this is an attack on free speech. This is about consequences and accountability. His words directly led his rabid fanbase to attack and terrorize the Sandy Hook families, threatening them, desecrating their loved ones graves, while he capitalized on their grief. NO ONE AND NO AGENCY stopped him from spreading his bullshit. So NO, you dumb a–hole, this isn’t about free speech. You had your say and you are being held accountable.
I don’t know if he personally declared bankruptcy, but his company has and he’s gleefully bragging about this. I hope they seize and liquidate all his assets, put a lien on any future earnings and assets — squeeze every drop of blood out of this unrepentant a**hole until he’s forced to wander the streets, begging on his hands and knees for mercy. That is my wish for this monster.
Absolutely the right decision.
What worries me, is that like this – he cannot pay the money now nor will he ever be able to pay it – he will just double down on his nonsense and gain more followers who will eventually do even more damage. I mean, it’s not like suing him then again for another billion would change his situation.
I wish there was a way to enforce other punishments (even in civil law) if the original amount can’t be paid.
Good. Now go after the aholes who showed up and harassed them. Let them feel some of these same consequences.
Bankrupt that trash.
Also, it feels like it happened 5-6 years ago, not 10.
Because unfortunately school shooting massacres have become more and more common, while Rethugs still don’t seem to understand that tighter gun control might result in less of them.
Oh, they know. They don’t care. There are people in this country who care about having guns, and ONLY about having guns. I saw them called “ammosexual” somewhere — maybe here? They are loud, and they have a lot of money, and therefore they have a lot of political power. Plus Republican politicians know that making people fearful helps their election chances. And they just like misery, so there’s that.
He should be paying that amount of money just for being one of the shittiest person in America. He profited from spreading fake news about Sandy Hook tragedy. A tragedy that involved kids, KIDS.
He is so damn evil. He deserves the worst of everything in life. Not one shred of decency. His fans are just as bad.
Good! I bet those poor families would give every cent away to spend one more day with their kids. Alex will drag this out for years and hide and dodge every dollar, but I hope they hound and hound him until the donations dry up and he’s a has been. He’s already out taking trash about Uvalde and Parkland. What would be great is if someone forcible takes his platform away forever.
IKR!?! I wish the production company and anyone associated with supporting his platform in anyway had been named in the suit. Make it unwise and fiscally frightening to be in business with this monster!
What he did was vile and inhumane. I hope they find all of his hidden assets and it’s a lesson learned for those of his ilk!
If he tries crowd funding, hope it’s not allowed!!
If they can jail people delinquent on child support until they pay the arrears, please tell me America can jail this man when (not if) he cannot/attempts to squelch on paying nearly $1 billion to the families. (Does he even have anywhere near that amount?! How much does infowars make?)
We have a friend who’s recently ex-military and we had to severely limit our time with (which SUCKS because he was a very close friend for over 15 years) because he listens to crap like Alex Jones. And it’s amazing when stuff that spews out is proven to be BS he’s all of a sudden “well Alex exaggerated but there’s definitely government coverup” and stuff like that. Last time I talked to him after Ulvade, he said he thinks democrats are the ones behind school shootings in order to promote their agenda of taking away guns. And this coming from a man, because he’s ex-military, has NO problem obtaining guns. There has to be millions out there who think like this, and it’s absolutely terrifying. I’m glad Alex Jones is being held responsible for his disgusting rhetoric, and I hope this is just the tip of the iceberg and we can take down outlets like Fox News and Tucker Carlson who openly spread fake news in order to incite panic and misconception.
What kind of brain worms one must have to find it easier to believe that an entire political party is hellbent on murdering school children just so they can take away people’s guns *rather than* children are shooting up schools because our violent, broken society values guns more than human life.
It’s sad that you have to pull away but he didn’t give you much of a choice–the brain rot runs deep with these people and nobody should be forced to endure their toxicity.
Isn’t Fox (and some of their talking heads, personally) facing a GIANT lawsuit from Dominion regarding their voting machines and all of the “stolen election” crap they spewed for months?
like, in the billions?
Yep. The very day of the Sandy Hook massacre, an old friend of mine responded by posting a meme that compared Obama to Hitler because they were both, supposedly, hell-bent on taking people’s guns away. The very day. Little children were savagely murdered and her first reaction was to compare our first Black president to history’s most evil person? Honestly, I’m still furious as I type this. I called her out, she stood by her post, so I unfriended her and don’t anticipate ever rekindling that friendship. It’s sad what hatred will do to people.
What a dumpster fire of a person. I hope they take everything he’s got and find ways to block him getting access to any cash he’s hidden and from mooching. I hope he hounded by whoever does this kind of work for the rest of his miserable life.
This shows the breakdown of what everyone for. I’m all but one, the male plaintiffs got more than their female counterparts and somehow the FBI agent, who didn’t lose any family in the shooting, got more than all but one family member. I would love to know how they got to these numbers.
https://twitter.com/StephSwinton/status/1580354874520190976?t=6M3OoCqnL9EbC8Eq06Em3g&s=19
That being said, he doesn’t have this money. What are the repercussions of that?
I think it’s based on how much the person was mentioned by Jones and how much harassment the person received.
This mofo has clearly lost the info wars.
Lock him up.
This judgment by the jury will significantly change Jone’s life for the worse and force other monsters like him to watch their words. Do Fox next.
I hope this will be enough to stop this nonsense. But there is so much money in this, and many diverse participants who engage in fear mongering.
Right wing atrocities.
This was the case that had Alex Jones most rattled because there was no cap on punitive damages AND those damages cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
His lawyer was a huge assh*le during this whole thing, too, which the jury saw throughout. Alex Jones is finished whether he realizes it or not.
From Rwanda, where the worst happened, and thinking about Sandy Hook, another place where the worst happened, I really wonder about the U.S. People are fine with Alex Jones? I get that they are. I understand that they are. But I’m not OK with them.
But will he obey? Doubtful. I’ll celebrate when he coughs up the cash. He’s never gonna pony up.
Good! The way he and his soiled minions have traumatized and harassed these families is incalculable. One father was driven to suicide, they threatened to vandalize and dig up the children’s graves and would constantly harass and stalk these people. I hope they sue each and every individual who tormented them as well. Jones is an absolutely vile person who is using this verdict to fundraise for himself. Absolutely no remorse or compassion. I hope they take every penny and asset off him.
Good hope he gets better everything taken from him. Evil person.
I’m in CT. We know someone whose grandson was a child in one of the 6th grade classes at Sandy Hook. He had horrible survivor’s guilt and PTSD and went through therapy for years to try to straighten himself out…and he was a survivor. I can’t even imagine what the parents of the murdered children are going through still. Frankly, I wish we could toss Alex Jones into prison for what he’s done. One particularly incredible story was the teacher who managed to hide all her students into cupboards and closets, and basically paid for their lives with her own when the gunman shot her when he didn’t find any children in the room.