Connecticut judge orders conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $473M in punitive defamation damages for Sandy Hook comments News
Jaredlholt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Connecticut judge orders conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $473M in punitive defamation damages for Sandy Hook comments

Connecticut Judge Barbara Bellis Thursday ruled that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay $473 million in punitive damages on top of a nearly $1 billion verdict handed down last month, for his defamatory statements about the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting.

Jones alleged that the parents of the victims were “crisis actors” and claimed that some of the children never actually existed. Jones now admits that the attack, which resulted in the deaths of 20 children and six adults on 14 December ,2012, was “100% real.” The case was brought by the families of eight victims and an FBI agent who responded to the attack. The parties alleged that the Jones’ misinformation led to a decade of harassment and death threats. The extent of damages awarded is reflective of the plaintiffs’ claim that Jones should face the maximum penalty available, given the “historic” scale of his wrongdoing and Jones’ “utter lack of repentance” as an aggravating factor.

Jones has faced three claims in total over his comments that the massacre was a “staged” government plot to take guns from Americans. Jones received a similar outcome in a Texas court in August ordering him to pay $45.2 million in damages to other Sandy Hook parents.

In a separate order late Wednesday, Bellis temporarily blocked Jones from moving any personal assets out of the country at the request of the plaintiffs, who claimed that Jones was trying to hide assets in order to avoid paying court orders. A lawyer for the families, Chris Mattei, stated that the ruling served to, “reinforce the message of this case: Those who profit from lies targeting the innocent will face justice.”