An Austin jury has yet to decide how much the Infowars host will have to pay in punitive damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 children and six teachers killed in the 2012 attack. in Newtown, Connecticut. The parents had sought at least $150 million in damages for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Jones’ lawyer asked the jury to limit the damages to $8 – one dollar for each of the damages they considered – and Jones himself said that any award above $2 million “would sink us.” It likely won’t be the last judgment against Jones – who was not in the courtroom – over his claims that the attack was staged in the interest of increasing gun controls. A Connecticut judge has ruled against him in a similar lawsuit brought by the families of other victims and an FBI agent who worked on the case. He also faces another trial in Austin. Jones’ lead attorney, Antino Reynal, winked at his attorney before leaving the courtroom. He declined to comment on the verdict. Outside court, plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Bankston insisted that the $4.11 million figure was not an upset, noting that it was only part of the damages Jones will have to pay. The jury returns Friday to hear more evidence about Jones and his company’s finances. In a video posted to his website Thursday night, Jones called the reduced award a significant victory. “I admitted I was wrong. I admitted it was wrong. I admitted that I followed the misinformation but not on purpose. I apologized to the families. And the jury got it. What I did to these families was wrong. But I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said. The award was “more money than my company and I personally have, but we will work to try to restore that,” Jones said. Bankston suggested that any declaration of victory might be premature. “We’re not done guys,” Bankston said. “We knew going into this case that we needed to shoot for the moon so that the jury knew we were serious and passionate. After tomorrow, he will owe a lot more.” The total amount awarded in this case could be a benchmark for the other lawsuits against Jones and underscore the financial threat he faces. It also raises new questions about the ability of Infowars – which has been banned by YouTube, Spotify and Twitter for hate speech – to continue operating, although the company’s finances remain unclear. Jones, who framed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights, admitted during the trial that the attack was “100 percent real” and that he was wrong to lie about it. But Heslin and Lewis told jurors that an apology would not be enough and called on them to make Jones pay for the years he suffered at the hands of them and other Sandy Hook families. The parents testified Tuesday about how they have endured a decade of trauma, first caused by their son’s slaying and what followed: shots fired at a home, online and phone threats and street harassment by strangers. They said the threats and harassment were fueled by Jones and his conspiracy theory spread to his followers through the Infowars website. A medical examiner testified that the parents suffer from “complex post-traumatic stress disorder” caused by ongoing trauma, similar to what a soldier in war or a victim of child abuse might experience. At one point in her testimony, Lewis looked directly at Jones, who was sitting just 10 feet away. “It seems so unbelievable to me that we have to do this – that we have to plead with you, punish you – make you stop lying,” Lewis told Jones. Barry Covert, a Buffalo, New York, First Amendment attorney not involved in the Jones case, said the $4 million in damages was lower than he would have expected based on the evidence and testimony. “But I don’t think Jones can take this as a victory,” he added. “The fact is, $4 million is significant even if we thought it would be a little bit higher.” Juries often decline to award any punitive damages after deciding on a compensatory amount. But when they choose to, the punitive amount is often higher, Covert said. He said he expects the parents’ lawyers to argue that the jury should send the message that no one should profit from defamation. “They’re going to want juries to send the message that you can’t make a quarter of a billion profit by injuring someone and say you’re just going to take the damage in court,” Covert said. Jones was the only witness to testify for his defense and attended the trial only sporadically while still appearing on his show. And he was attacked by cross-examination plaintiffs’ attorneys as they reviewed Jones’ video claims about Sandy Hook over the years and accused him of lying and trying to hide evidence, including text messages and emails about the attack. It also included internal emails sent by an Infowars employee saying “this Sandy Hook stuff is killing us.” At one point, Jones was informed that his lawyers had accidentally sent Bankston two years’ worth of text messages from Jones’ cellphone. Bankston said in court Thursday that the Jan. 6 U.S. House committee investigating the 2021 Capitol attack has requested the records and that he plans to comply. And shortly after Jones stated “I don’t use email,” he showed Jones one from his address and another from an Infowars entrepreneur who told Jones the company had grossed $800,000 selling its products in one day. which would amount to nearly $300 million in one year. Jones’ media company Free Speech Systems, which is the parent company of Infowars, filed for bankruptcy during the two-week trial.
Associated Press writer Michael Tarm in Chicago contributed to this report.
For more from the AP’s coverage of school shootings:
