Comment A Texas jury has ruled that Infowars host Alex Jones must pay the parents of a Sandy Hook school shooting victim $45.2 million in punitive damages. Friday’s decision comes a day after the same court awarded the plaintiffs $4.1 million in damages, culminating in the final phase of a defamation case first filed in 2018 over Jones’ repeated false claims that the deadliest shooting elementary school in US history was a farce. Jones was not in court as the jury read the unanimous verdict. The damages phase of the trial that ended Friday marks the first time Jones, a powerful purveyor of far-right conspiracy theories, has faced financial repercussions in court for outlandish lies he told on his Infowars show about the shooting. In the early days after the 2012 shooting that killed 26 people, including 20 young children, Jones said on his show that “nobody died” in Sandy Hook and that the attack was a ruse “staged” by supporters of gun control to build anti-gun sentiment. Alex Jones must pay $4.1 million to Sandy Hook parents, jury rules In the case brought by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, the damages hint at what Jones could face in the coming months in additional Sandy Hook defamation cases in Texas and Connecticut. It remains to be seen how much of the punitive damages the parents will ultimately receive, as Texas law limits such awards per plaintiff to twice the compensatory award plus $750,000, according to Carl Tobias, a tort expert at the University of Richmond School of Law. This calculation means that plaintiffs could see less than a quarter of the total award determined by the jury, and that amount could be reduced even further if the damages are for non-economic reasons, such as emotional distress rather than loss wages, Tobias said. Punitive damages are meant to sting, Tobias said, so juries tend to award amounts commensurate with a defendant’s finances, despite the fact that many states have conflicting limits on such awards. “The theory is that the damages are supposed to be significant enough to deter the person who did this – and other members of society,” he said. Jurors on Friday heard additional testimony about Jones’ finances before deliberating on how much to punish Jones for his lies and deter him from repeating them. In court Friday, Bernard Pettingill, Jr., a forensic economist and former professor of economics at the Florida Institute of Technology, testified that he estimated the combined net worth of Jones and his business entities to be between $135 million and $270 million. “You can’t separate Alex Jones from the companies. This is the companies,” Pettingill said. The testimony starkly contradicts Jones’ public statements that he is financially strapped. His defense team initially asked the jury to award the plaintiffs $1 for each claim, after Jones lost millions of dollars and followers when he was banned from social media platforms like YouTube and Spotify. Free Speech Systems, the parent company for the Infowars website, filed for bankruptcy during the trial, though Pettingill and other witnesses said it was impossible to fully examine Jones’ finances because he failed to provide documents to the court. Jones’ refusal to comply with court orders regarding documents and other evidence led Travis County, Texas, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble to enter default judgments against Jones last September, making him liable for all damages. But in a dramatic moment in court on Wednesday, it was revealed that Jones’ legal team had mistakenly sent the contents of his mobile phone to a lawyer representing the parents. The apparent gaffe led plaintiff’s attorney Mark Bankston to accuse Jones of lying under oath when he testified that he had no text messages related to the Sandy Hook massacre. On August 3, attorney Mark Bankston accused Alex Jones of lying after cross-referencing the contents of Jones’ phone. (Video: KXAN News) During jury deliberations, Jones’ lawyers asked for a mistrial and asked Bankston to delete the phone data they had turned over, which the judge refused. Jones’ lawyers said the legal battle against him was an attack on his First Amendment rights, while the parents’ legal team argued his speech was defamatory and not protected. Sandy Hook lawyers say Alex Jones’ lawyers accidentally gave them the contents of his phone Heslin and Lewis testified during the nearly two-week defamation phase of the case that Jones’ relentless false claims that their son never died and that they were “crisis actors” created a “living hell” for them. While on the stand Tuesday, Heslin said as he mourned his son, he also faced death threats and abuse from those who embraced Jones’ rhetoric. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble reprimands Infowars founder Alex Jones for swearing during his defamation trial in Travis County on August 2, 2022. (Video: The Washington Post) “I can’t even describe the past 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,” Heslin told the jury. In his final speech on Friday, Bankston said jurors are tasked with punishing and deterring Jones with their verdict and implored them to use their vote to “stop Alex Jones.” “Really, today you have the ability to stop this man from doing this again: continuing to tear apart the fabric of our society for the great monetary gain he has received thus far,” Bankston said. “Speech is free,” he added. “Lies, you pay.” Meryl Kornfield contributed to this report.
