alex jones on sandy hook_ he deserves respect.mp4

Connecticut jury orders Alex Jones to pay nearly $1 billion to Sandy Hook families

Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

A Connecticut jury ordered Infowars founder Alex Jones to pay $965 million days, he began to suggest that grieving parents were actors. In the years that followed, he repeatedly said the massacre was faked.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

In August, a jury in a different case in Texas said Jones must pay nearly $50 million to the parents of Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old killed at Sandy Hook. The actual payout, however, will be far smaller due to state limits on such awards.

.

Earlier this year, as Jones faced multiple defamation suits, he acknowledged in court that the mass shooting at Sandy Hook was “100% real” and expressed some regret for his statements. But last month, he once again told his audience that people were right to raise questions about the massacre, saying, “I don’t really know what really happened there.”

Jones refused to share crucial evidence — including financial records and data on traffic to his websites — with the plaintiffs in the Connecticut case, a violation of his legal obligations. Judge Barbara Bellis entered a default judgment against him holding him liable for defamation. The jury’s only task, Bellis said as deliberations began, was to determine “the extent of the harm.”

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

The state of Jones’ finances is murky. In the Texas trial, Bernard Pettingill, a forensic economist hired by the plaintiffs, estimated that Jones and his companies have a net worth of up to $270 million. Pettingill also said Jones withdrew $62 million in 2021.

Jones has said his businesses are struggling: Earlier this year, Infowars and its parent company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy protection.

During his testimony last month, Jones was largely unrepentant. When Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the families, told Jones to show more respect for the relatives in the courtroom, Jones lashed out.

“Is this a struggle session? Are we in China?” Jones said, a reference to Maoist-era rallies used to denounce and humiliate. “I’ve already said I’m sorry hundreds of times, and I’m done saying I’m sorry.”

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Over the past month, all the plaintiffs — the relatives of eight of the victims and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting — testified at the trial. They described receiving threats and hate mail from conspiracy theorists who believed they were “crisis actors.”

Francine Wheeler, whose 6-year-old son, Ben, was killed at Sandy Hook, spoke about how hoaxers seized on her career as a singer and performer to spread sinister theories about the family. They also circulated a photo of a choir performance by her older son, who had survived the shooting, to suggest that no children had been killed at the school.

“It is one thing to lose a child,” said Wheeler. “It’s quite another thing when people take everything about your boy who is gone, and your surviving child, and your husband, and everything you ever did in your life on the internet and harass you.”

Robbie Parker’s daughter Emilie, 6, was killed in the shooting. He was the first parent to speak publicly in the wake of the massacre. Just before Parker made an anguished statement to the media, he gave a brief nervous smile as he saw the assembled journalists. Jones seized on the moment as evidence of the purported hoax, playing the seconds-long clip again and again in the years after the shooting.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Parker described the shame he felt for the harassment faced by the families, believing that he had somehow “brought this on everybody.” Parker’s voice trembled and his body shook as he told the court that he still feels a sense of responsibility, even though logically he knows that it was not his fault.

William Aldenberg, a former FBI agent, responded to the scene of the shooting on Dec. 14, 2012. He too became a target of conspiracy theories.

Mattei, the lawyer for the families, asked Aldenberg if what he saw in ion. “It’s awful, awful.”

“Their children got slaughtered,” Aldenberg said, addressing the families. “I saw it myself, and now they have to sit here and listen to me say this."

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Disclosure: Apple and Facebook have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete