Alex Jones, the Infowars conspiracy broadcaster must pay an additional $473 million in damages to eight Sandy Hook shooting victims, bringing the total to over $1.4 billion.
Sandy Hook families to get additional payment
Last month, a jury in Waterbury, Connecticut awarded the Sandy Hook victims’ families and an FBI agent after they were implicated in Jones’ false claims. The jury also awarded punitive damages in the form of lawyers’ fees. Judge Barara N. Bellis from the Connecticut Superior Court represents them in the $473 million addition.
Earlier this year, a Texas judge offered Mr. Jones to pay another victim’s parents a fee of $50 million, in the first of the three trials for determining the damages owed by Jones. Additionally, Judge Bellis also froze Jones’ assets. This is to ensure that he does “not transfer, encumber, dispose or move his assets out of the United States until further order of the court”. A hearing is scheduled on December 2 to decide on the matter.
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“We hope that this serves to reinforce the message of this case: Those who profit from lies targeting the innocent will face justice,” stated Christopher M. Mattei. Mattei is a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families in the case. Emphasizing Jones’ depravity in spreading lies about the 2012 shooting, he stated that the families “establish the highest degree of reprehensibility and blameworthiness”. “The first step in making sure that Jones personally will pay every penny he has to the families he spent years tormenting,” stated the lawyer.
For years, Alex Jones has been spreading lies that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a “false flag” operation. The shooting took the lives of six educators and 20 students. He was accusing families of being “crisis actors”. Later in 2018, the families of 10 victims filed cases against Jones for defamation.