After making false claims that a 2012 school massacre was a fabrication, US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was sentenced to pay $49.3 million (£41 million) in damages.
In addition to the $4.1 million in compensatory damages they had earlier given, a Texas jury decided that the radio presenter must pay $45.2 million in punitive damages.
The parents of a kid slain in the incident initiated the two-week slander trial.
Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut saw the deaths of twenty children and six adults.
Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, the estranged parents of Jesse Lewis, 6, who perished in the first-grade school massacre, filed the complaint.
The plaintiffs requested $150 million, claiming that the falsehoods spread by the Infowars founder had subjected them to harassment and emotional suffering.
The compensatory damages awarded on Thursday were intended to make up for the real losses the family suffered as a result of Jones’ libel, including the expense of the privacy protection they had to engage throughout the trial out of concern for a possible attack from a Jones admirer.
Punitive damages are intended to serve as a deterrent and prevent Jones from committing the same offence in the future.
The parents’ attorney stated in court on Friday, “We ask that you deliver a very, very clear message and that is: Stop Alex Jones.
“Please stop making money off of false information and falsehoods.”
An economist hired by the parents testified earlier on Friday that the combined value of Jones, his media outlet Infowars, and parent business Free Speech Systems might reach $270 million.
Records, according to Bernard Pettingill, show that Jones took $62 million for himself from his firm in 2021 as his legal issues worsened, he said to the court.
According to Mr. Pettingill, “That figure shows a value of a net worth.” He has funds deposited in a bank account someplace.
The two-week trial’s opening week saw Free Speech Systems petition for bankruptcy protection.
Jones’ company was said to have made over $800,000 in a single day by selling diet pills, gun accessories, and survival gear, according to testimony during the trial.
Jones was accused of trying to conceal evidence by the parents’ attorneys, and they said that he had lied when he claimed not to have sent any texts concerning the Sandy Hook massacre.
This Monday, a lawyer for the plaintiffs disclosed that Jones’ counsel had unintentionally forwarded to them two years’ worth of the radio host’s phone texts.
He said that the congressional panel looking into the violence at the US Capitol last year had asked for access to the texts in order to investigate Jones’ suspected involvement.
Family members of the Sandy Hook victims are bringing the first of three cases against Jones.
As a result of his failure to provide evidence and testimony, he has already been found in default in many defamation actions brought by the victims’ parents.
However, this was the first trial in which a jury determined pecuniary damages.
Jones made a brief Friday court appearance, but he was not there for the judgement.
Despite reversing his statements regarding Sandy Hook, Jones has persisted in using his media platform to say that the jury was unfairly selected and that the other members “don’t know what planet they’re on.” The judge was shown on his Infowars website being engulfed by fire.
The judge reprimanded him many times for his actions, at one point telling him, “This is not your show.”
Following the Friday ruling, he released a video in which he said that his net worth was far less than what was stated in court and referred to the trial as “beyond any kangaroo-rigged court ever.”
Popular US fringe conservative commentator Jones has frequently claimed that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax planned by the government to take away Americans’ right to bear arms and that the parents of the victims were “crisis actors.”
His attorney had referenced the US Constitution’s provisions for free expression and begged for mercy throughout the trial, claiming that the jury had already informed all radio broadcasters “that their standard of care has altered” by doing so.
