Dhe far-right US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been sentenced to pay more than four million dollars in damages to two parents whose child was killed in a 2012 school massacre. A Texas jury on Thursday awarded Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis $4.1 million in damages for Jones’ repeated allegations that he caused the bloodbath at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School when he was 26 dead did not really take place.
The 48-year-old radio host and founder of the right-wing website “Infowars” could be sentenced to millions in punitive damages in a next step. Such punitive damages, intended as a punishment and deterrent, are often significantly higher than the actual damages.
Influential radio host
Jones has repeatedly claimed that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a fake to enforce gun laws. In the massacre in the city of Newtown on December 14, 2012, the perpetrator shot 20 children and six adults before taking his own life.
Jones, who is very influential in radical right-wing circles, has been sued by a number of parents for his allegations. Now he has been sentenced to pay damages for the first time.
The civil trial in Austin, Texas had caused a stir. On Wednesday, plaintiff attorney Mark Bankston caused a surprise when he revealed in court that Jones’ attorneys accidentally sent him a complete digital copy of the conspiracy theorist’s cell phone.
“Do you know what perjury is?”
Bankston said Jones had repeatedly testified under oath that he could not find any text messages about the elementary school massacre on his cell phone. But there were such messages on the cell phone. “Do you know what perjury is?” the attorney asked Jones.
Jones’ attorneys then asked for the trial to be dropped. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble rejected that on Thursday.
Infowars filed for bankruptcy in April. Another of Jones’ companies, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy last week.
Jones is known as a supporter of former US President Donald Trump. He endorsed Trump’s false claim that his election loss to current President Joe Biden was the result of massive fraud. Jones was also in Washington when radical Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He was questioned behind closed doors by the parliamentary inquiry into the storming of the Capitol.
