The jury awarded Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of murdered 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, $45.2 million in punitive damages and $4.1 million in compensatory damages. Jones, 48, faces additional defamation lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas. After describing Jones as “a man who boldly answers the question: What if Grimace was a proud boy?” Oliver exclaimed, “Guess what, Alex? You fucked up with information and this time information won.” He added: “And the way he handled this trial is almost a master class in what not to do in court.”
For starters, Oliver pointed out, the judge became so “infuriated” by Jones’ lies in court that at one point he stopped the proceedings to deal with it, telling him: “It seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth . while you testify, but here I am: You must tell the truth while testifying… this is not your show.”
That didn’t stop Jones, who continued to appear during the trial on the truth-averse Infowars show, where, according to Oliver, he was “baselessly linked [the judge] to pedophilia” and suggested that his political enemies had stacked the jury with “blue collar” people who were unable to decide what damages he should pay. This is typical of Jones, who once argued that the government was poisoning the water and turning frogs gay, that Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg was a crisis actor, that the Charlottesville car attack was a fake operation , that Michelle Obama is transgender, and that 9/11 was “a government-orchestrated, controlled bombing.” “There was a twist that he might not have seen coming,” Oliver said of Jones’ trial. An attorney representing the parents of the slain Sandy Hook child presented a text message in court that proved Jones had lied on the stand when he claimed there were no messages on his phone discussing Sandy Hook. When Jones expressed surprise as to where the lawyer might have gotten it, he explained to Jones, “You knew [that] 12 days ago your lawyers messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone, with every text message you’ve sent in the last two years? And when informed, [they] took no steps to mark it as privileged or protected in any way? And as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession, and that’s how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have text messages about Sandy Hook.” “This is your Perry Mason moment,” Jones replied in surprise. “Oh shit!” Oliver exclaimed. “First off, kudos to this lawyer for having the superhuman patience to sit on these text messages for 12 whole days… but the contents of Jones’ phone could become a problem for him. Not only has the Jan. 6 panel already requested those phone records, but they also show that Jones, who tried to plead poverty in this case, was earning up to $800,000 a day in recent years in sales.”
Oliver concluded, “Look, clearly, none of this is going to stop him. Two more tests are coming up, and he will probably find ways to turn them into a clown show and raise money from them. But at the very least, this phone could make his life a lot harder and for a while. And that’s something we should all be allowed to enjoy, because waking up one morning to find that Alex Jones’ lawyers accidentally shared his cell phone records is a true blessing. We don’t deserve this, but one thing is for sure: Him for sure does.”