Alex Jones is known to talk about everything and anything about everyone. However, seems like now he gets his ‘not so free’ lesson from the judge and jury in the defamation case against him. The court case is about the falsehoods Alex Jones tells about the massacre from the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.
At first, the judge and jury ordered him to pay $4.1 million to the parents of a child killed in the massacre. But, now he is facing an additional $45.2 million that he needs to pay to the grieving family.
Alex Jones Facing Enormous $45 Million Fine For His Sandy Hook Shooting Lies
You may think that the combined $49.3 million is an enormous amount, but it is still far less than what the family was asking. Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis are the parents of the slain child. They initially asked for $150 million for the lies Alex Jones had told.
He repeatedly told the lies that the elementary school murders in Newtown, Connecticut, were all staged up. He called the victims ‘crisis actors’ and claimed that all of this is staged so that gun control reform can be forced.
Of course, some legal negotiations and wranglings will follow after the initial judge’s decision, and the amount may be brought down by a bit. However, this is nonetheless a great victory for the Sandy Hook shooting victim family. In addition, Alex Jones is one of the loudest conspiracy theorists in the States, so this may ‘teach him a lesson’ on choosing what he says.
After the judge’s decision on Friday, the mother of the victim in question took the stand and recalled her son’s courage. Allegedly he died while warning his schoolmates to run for their lives as the shooter was reloading.
“I hope that I did that incredible courage justice when I was able to confront Alex Jones. He is … a bully.” – the mother said to Associated Press on Friday. “I hope that inspires other people to do the same.”
Alex Jones may be facing yet another fine for this. Before the verdict reading on Friday, the legal team of the victim’s family asked the judge to consider ordering a demonetization of his posts on all platforms.
“I have a very, very simple message”. – one of the lawyers said. “And that stops Alex Jones, stop the monetization of misinformation and lies. Please.”
The parents of the victim testified that they are a subject of harassment from Jones’s followers as well. And this is going on for quite some time. For years they received messages from people across the globe labeling them as liars and scammers.
Furthermore, what these messages did is – it made it impossible for them to ‘heal’ after their son’s death. This type of emotional distress that they face is something that they will most probably need to live with until the end of their lives. And this is one of the points in the initial court filing against Alex Jones.
The judge judged this in their favor almost immediately. Alex Jones was unable to provide any sort of documentation in response to the lawsuit. So basically what he was doing is he was waiting for the exact amount to be determined and hoping for a smaller amount.
Alex Jones finally confessed that he knows that the massacre is ‘100% real’ and apologized to the family. He says he is sorry if he hurt someone with his claims and that he is distancing himself from the conspiracies he spread.
The judge told the family that while Alex jones is guilty of spreading lies through his internet posts he is not responsible, nor can somehow control his follower’s actions. Alex couldn’t be held responsible for the bullying that the family had by his followers.
An expert in finances investigates Jones and his company Free Speech Systems. He claims that they have a combined wealth of about $270 million. The claim states that Alex Jones is making somewhere around $50 million annually. All this, on the back of these victims’ families.
According to the finance expert, this amount is very hard to track. He states that Alex Jones had opened a bunch of shell companies. They have no employees but Alex used them for passing money around – making them hard to follow. In addition, this was making the money so hard to follow that the financial experts were unable to determine the exact worth of the companies.
Alex Jones’s company Free Speech Systems asked for federal bankruptcy protection past week. According to Jones, this would help the company stay active during the appeal against the $45 million decision.
With the appeal that will take place in the Austin, Texas courtroom Alex is hoping for a reduction of the fine. The appeal aimes at reducing the award drastically, if not annulling it completely. Alex Jones’s legal team argues that $270 000 in punitive damages seems fair, however, anything above that is just too much.
His company claims bankruptcy because, in the past period, many similar cases against Alex Jones appeared. Because Jones remains unresponsive to most of them, he lost almost all of them by default.
This win by the Sandy Hook victim’s family may open a rabbit hole for Alex Jones from which he will hardly get out. Finally, the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory is not the only one that Alex Jones propagated on Infowars. People find some other conspiracy theory for which they can sue him. And there will be no stopping the storm heading his way.
Alex Jones lied about a Washington DC pizzeria claiming that the owners used it as a child sex abuse ring. This claim caused an enraged man to get inside the pizzeria with a rifle and start shooting. Another conspiracy that comes to mind is that a yogurt manufacturer supported a child rapist who spread tuberculosis.
Alex Jones has been busy thinking of conspiracy theories and lies in the past period. However, the family of the Sandy Hook victim was working on something much greater. They started a foundation. The Choose Love Foundation has a goal to promote social and emotional education in schools. The goal is to raise the general compassion in people to a satisfactory level. According to them, it is enough for these people that make money on the backs of such tragic incidents. Moreover on the backs of the victims and their families.
The name Choose Love comes from Jesse, the son that got killed in the shooting quote. He left it on the kitchen chalkboard before the shooter killed him.
