Families affected by the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting are demanding that Alex Jones be ordered to pay $2.75 trillion in damages. That’s on top of the nearly $1 billion they’ve already been awarded by a Connecticut jury for defamation.
They stated that only “the highest possible punitive damages” could stop the Infowars moderator from further harming them. The families said they were entitled to that amount because Jones broke a state law prohibiting the sale of products using false information. They arrived at the total by multiplying the $5,000 fine per violation by the 550 million social media contacts Jones had in the three years following a shooting at a school involving 20 first graders and six teachers and the son’s mother perpetrator and his death, on his Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts.
For years, Jones referred to family members as “crisis actors” and claimed their loved ones were not murdered in an elementary school massacre. He also denies that his statements are defamatory. “Alex Jones is doing these attacks for one reason: greed,” the families’ lawyers said on Friday. “Alex Jones will never treat them like real people because they are too valuable for him to target.”
Infowars presenter declares he is bankrupt
Judge Barbara Bellis will determine the final amount Jones must pay. She has previously stated that she believes Jones violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA) by making false claims about the Sandy Hook massacre during his broadcasts , nutritional supplements and survival gear. The Infowars presenter, meanwhile, has declared that he is bankrupt and will not pay the families a penny.
On Nov. 12, a Connecticut jury already awarded eight families and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting $965 million for suffering at the hands of Infowars fans who believed Jones’ theory. The jury at the time did not have to deal with the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, only to determine damages for defamation and psychological cruelty, after Bellis had previously ruled in another trial that Jones had defamed the families. Jones had previously repeatedly refused to testify or provide any documents that could show how much his company makes.
Jones put Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, under bankruptcy protection in federal bankruptcy court in Houston earlier this year, just before another Texas jury awarded a Sandy Hook family nearly $50 million in damages for defamation. The conspiracy narrator faces a third libel trial against another Sandy Hook family in Texas later this year. During the Connecticut trial, a Jones employee testified that his post-Sandy Hook businesses had sales of between $150 million and $1 billion.
Jones’ attorney, Norm Pattis, has previously announced that he will appeal the jury’s verdict.