US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million for Sandy Hook lies

[EnterpriseSovereign]

US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million for Sandy Hook lies.

US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been ordered by a Connecticut jury to pay $965 million (£869 million) to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax.

The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host for claiming the massacre was staged. It came in a lawsuit filed by the relatives of eight victims.

An FBI agent who responded to the shooting was also a plaintiff. Jones now believes the shooting was real, but he says he had a right to publicly question whether it happened.

A Texas jury in August ordered Jones to pay $50 million to the parents of another slain child.

The Connecticut trial featured tearful testimony from parents and siblings of the victims, who told about how they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’ show.

Strangers showed up at their homes to record them. People hurled abusive comments on social media.

Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, testified that people mailed rape threats to her house.

Mark Barden told of how conspiracy theorists had urinated on the grave of his seven-year-old son, Daniel, and threatened to dig up the coffin.

Testifying during the trial, Jones acknowledged he had been wrong about Sandy Hook. The shooting was real, he said. But both in the courtroom and on his show, he was defiant.

He called the proceedings a “kangaroo court,” mocked the judge, called the plaintiffs’ lawyer an ambulance chaser and labelled the case an affront to free speech rights. He claimed it was a conspiracy by Democrats and the media to silence him and put him out of business.

“I’ve already said ‘I’m sorry’ hundreds of times and I’m done saying I’m sorry,” he said during his testimony.

Twenty children and six adults died in the shooting on December 14, 2012. The defamation trial was held at a courthouse in Waterbury, about 20 miles from Newtown, where the attack took place.

The lawsuit accused Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, of using the mass killing to build his audience and make millions of dollars.

Experts testified that Jones’ audience swelled when he made Sandy Hook a topic on the show, as did his revenue from product sales.

Alex Jones' Infowars files for bankruptcy amid Sandy Hook defamation cases

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay $49.3M total over Sandy Hook lies
In both the Texas lawsuit and the one in Connecticut, judges found the company liable for damages by default after Jones failed to cooperate with court rules on sharing evidence, including failing to turn over records that might have showed whether Infowars had profited from knowingly spreading misinformation about mass killings.

Because he was already found liable, Jones was barred from mentioning free speech rights and other topics during his testimony.

Jones now faces a third trial, in Texas around the end of the year, in a lawsuit filed by the parents of another child killed in the shooting.

It is unclear how much of the verdicts Jones can afford to pay. During the trial in Texas, he testified he couldn’t afford any judgment over $2 million.

Free Speech Systems has filed for bankruptcy protection. But an economist testified in the Texas proceeding that Jones and his company were worth as much as $270 million.

Couldn't have happened to a more vile human being.

[LadyTevar]

Bastard deserves to lose every single thing he owns. This is Karma slapping him down for years of being a vile hateful little shit making money off lies and people's misery.

I just wonder if he's going to try to pull a Trump and beg for money from his followers.

[Lord Revan]

While there's a wisdom is questioning what you are told, that wasn't what Alex Jones did, what he did was pushing an alternative narrative for greed and personal power.

I hope he'll have to pay every cent of that punishment by himself.

[wautd]

Good. Fuck that guy and his extremist lunatic following. I wish they took all of his money that he gained from the misery of others

[PainRack]

The funny bit is how he COULD have potentially avoided paying damages if he had played ball and went the 1A route , but because he fucked around during discovery and disobeyed two judges, he found out

[Crazedwraith]

I'm shocked at that amount especially compared the other judgement of being 50 million. Why the discrepancy between the two states?

[LadyTevar]

I'm shocked at that amount especially compared the other judgement of being 50 million. Why the discrepancy between the two states?

Mostly because the first suit was just one family, while this one was multiple families.

[Gandalf]

Good to see.

Hopefully this precedent can be used for other issues of people lying leading to massive damage, like Bush in Iraq.

[Broomstick]

I suspect Bush the Younger will die in his own bed without ever facing consequences of his decisions.

[Lord Revan]

I suspect Bush the Younger will die in his own bed without ever facing consequences of his decisions.

Yeah I suspect that Bush is not as stupid as Jones to actually have statements where they say know what they're saying is a lie but say it anyway and thus it's harder to prove that Bush intentionally told/acted on a lie and just didn't have bad intel.

I suspect the key reason Alex Jones is facing any consequences that aren't just a slap on the wrist is that he was stupid enough to essentially give the prosecution access to statements where mister Jones outright admits that he knew Sandy Hook did happen and how serious it was but still wanted to push "Sandy Hook was false" narrative as that would give him more money and influence.

EDIT: After all knowing something most likely did happen and being able to prove it beyond reasonable doubt are too different things and the moment we start basing the standard of evidence on how we personally feel about a person is when must abandon all notions of doing this for justice and just admit we want some in jail because of our personal distaste for them.

[bilateralrope]

The funny bit is how he COULD have potentially avoided paying damages if he had played ball and went the 1A route , but because he fucked around during discovery and disobeyed two judges, he found out

Yeah. Had he cooperated with the court, he probably could have convinced enough jurors to side with him to avoid his losses. But he tried playing his audience instead of the courts. Making things a lot worse for himself.

[Isolder74]

Yes he tried to pull the doctor's note thing claiming health issues meant he can't show up for a disposition. Then trots off to his studio and goes live while he was suppose to be appearing in court, live at his studio, not house, meaning his doctor's note wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

Does it surprise anyone the judge threw all the books at him?

[Lord Revan]

From everything I've seen/read from this it seems Alex Jones made the classic mistake of not assuming his opponents were as smart as he was, so he tried to pull things like the doctor's note without even pretending to honor it thinking the mere presence of said note would be enough to make him immune to prosecution, what mister Jones did not realize that a doctor's note you do not honor is worthless (even if it did came from an actual MD and Jones didn't just fake it) and any even semi-smart prosecutor or judge will call you on your BS.

[bilateralrope]

Yes he tried to pull the doctor's note thing claiming health issues meant he can't show up for a disposition. Then trots off to his studio and goes live while he was suppose to be appearing in court, live at his studio, not house, meaning his doctor's note wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

Does it surprise anyone the judge threw all the books at him?

The most memorable bit of sanctions was in one of the lawsuits where the judge was so fed up that Jones wasn't even allowed to claim innocence in his defense. That trial moved to the damages phase. Then one of his attorneys "accidently" gave the plaintiffs a full copy of one of his phones and did nothing to try and claw it back*, allowing the plaintiffs the free use of everything they got. Including lots of messages Jones hadn't handed over in discovery claiming they didn't exist.

From memory, lot of parties in other lawsuits were very interested in that data dump and the plaintiffs that are in lawful possession of that data have no reason to refuse a subpoena. Which is probably why this latest case got a larger damages amount, the plaintiffs there were able to present evidence that wasn't available for the other lawsuits.


*There is a procedure for clawing back accidents like that.

[Isolder74]

From everything I've seen/read from this it seems Alex Jones made the classic mistake of not assuming his opponents were as smart as he was, so he tried to pull things like the doctor's note without even pretending to honor it thinking the mere presence of said note would be enough to make him immune to prosecution, what mister Jones did not realize that a doctor's note you do not honor is worthless (even if it did came from an actual MD and Jones didn't just fake it) and any even semi-smart prosecutor or judge will call you on your BS.

He didn't fake it and he did.

The note was signed by a real MD but a specilist in something unrelated to the claimed issues preventing him from appearing so the opposing lawyers saw right through it. What's better instead of sending it with his primary attorney, he sends it with one of the firm's interns who wasn't told anything about it so couldn't tell the judge anything that was asked about it. Of course after a recess, the opposition was able to see him broadcasting live since that morning as usual and well.....

Edit: Oh and the lesser lawyer was told to try and make it so only the judge could look at the note which the judge shot down and shared with the opposition any.

[Lord Revan]

From everything I've seen/read from this it seems Alex Jones made the classic mistake of not assuming his opponents were as smart as he was, so he tried to pull things like the doctor's note without even pretending to honor it thinking the mere presence of said note would be enough to make him immune to prosecution, what mister Jones did not realize that a doctor's note you do not honor is worthless (even if it did came from an actual MD and Jones didn't just fake it) and any even semi-smart prosecutor or judge will call you on your BS.

He didn't fake it and he did.

The note was signed by a real MD but a specilist in something unrelated to the claimed issues preventing him from appearing so the opposing lawyers saw right through it. What's better instead of sending it with his primary attorney, he sends it with one of the firm's interns who wasn't told anything about it so couldn't tell the judge anything that was asked about it. Of course after a recess, the opposition was able to see him broadcasting live since that morning as usual and well.....

Edit: Oh and the lesser lawyer was told to try and make it so only the judge could look at the note which the judge shot down and shared with the opposition any.

As said Jones seems to think everyone but him are utterly moronic and thus would fall for such a simple scheme. Well this and mister Jones seems to overestimate his own intellect by rather large degree.

When a modern US judge makes a judgement that's essentially "the plea of innocence is guilty of wasting my time" in a semi-high profile case like this you should know you've screwed up and badly.

[Isolder74]

Well in a class action lawsuit for defamation, failing to appear for a disposition is considered and admission of guilt. Trying to weasel out of it in a clear effort to waste everyone's time and increase the costs for the opposition so they are forced to withdraw because they ran out of money. He was doing everything to be an east european dictatorSpoiler

(he was Stalin)

.

It worked for him before but this time the judge was not having any of it.

[The_Saint]

Yes he tried to pull the doctor's note thing claiming health issues meant he can't show up for a disposition. Then trots off to his studio and goes live while he was suppose to be appearing in court, live at his studio, not house, meaning his doctor's note wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

Does it surprise anyone the judge threw all the books at him?

Different jurisdiction (completely different country even) but I sat through a legal case where the defendant tried the "Dr's note to avoid fronting the judge" trick but so badly we then got to see the Judge send the court sheriff to the local hospital to fetch them.

I can't remember the exact statement in the court room but it was something along the lines of "they'd better be in the [Dr's rooms], if they aren't and I don't care if they're in the waiting room waiting, they're coming here."
Was interesting to see the lawyer try and protest but the Judge wasn't taking any shit.