Darren Lyn
05 August 2022•Update: 05 August 2022
HOUSTON, Texas
A Texas jury ruled Thursday that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages to the parents of 6-year-old Jessie Lewis, who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting on Dec. 14, 2012 in the US state of Connecticut.
The parents, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, were seeking $150 million in compensation from Jones for defamation and infliction of emotional distress.
Jones repeatedly claimed after the Newtown massacre that the deadliest school shooting in US history was a hoax. Twenty children and six educators were murdered by the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who then killed himself.
This is the first time that Jones, the Infowars fake news website host and owner, has been held financially liable for his false claims.
Jones' attorney asked the jury to limit damages to just eight dollars -- one dollar for each of the compensation charges -- and Jones said in court that any award more than $2 million "would sink us."
Jones' media company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy during the trial.
However, the $4.1 million award is just the beginning, as the jury returns on Friday to hear more evidence about Jones and his company's finances.
“We aren’t done folks,” said the plaintiffs' attorney Mark Bankston at a news conference outside the courthouse. “We knew coming into this case it was necessary to shoot for the moon to get to understand we were serious and passionate. After tomorrow, he’s going to owe a lot more."
Jones had continuously classified the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment right to freedom of speech, but during the trial, he admitted the massacre was "100% real" and that he was wrong to have lied about it.
However, Heslin and Lewis said during the trial that an apology wasn’t enough to take away the nearly decade of pain Jones has inflicted upon them and the other Sandy Hook families.
"I can't even describe the last nine and a half years, the living hell that I and others have had to endure because of the recklessness and negligence of Alex Jones," said Heslin. "I know there are hoaxes out there, but this is an incredibly real event. I lived it."
This likely won't be the last ruling against Jones over his claims that the attack was a staged hoax. A Connecticut judge ruled against Jones in a similar lawsuit brought by other victims' families after being found guilty by default because he refused a court order to turn over documents and financial records for deposition in that case.
The total amount awarded in this case could also set a marker for the other lawsuits against Jones that are still ongoing.
“It seems so incredible to me that we have to do this," said Lewis. "That we have to implore you, to punish you, to get you to stop lying."
