Alex Jones.Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
A jury in Texas has found Infowars host and conspiracy theoristAlex Jonesliable for $4.1 million in damages for his repeated lies claiming theSandy Hook Elementary School shootingwas “manufactured” and that the parents who lost their children in the massacre were actors,The New York Timesreported.
In Oct. 2021, the right-wing radio host was foundlegally responsiblefor spreading false and inflammatory statements about the mass shooting after Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin — whose six-year-old son Jesse Lewis was murdered during the 2012 massacre — sued him for defamation.
After a nearly two-week trial to determine how much Jones and his media company must pay Lewis and Heslin, who delivered devastating testimony against Jones, the jury began deliberating on Wednesday before deciding on $4.1 million in compensatory damages.
Lawyers for Lewis and Heslin were seeking $150 million in damages.
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Just after 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2012, Lewis and Heslin were among the parents, spouses and loved ones who were sentenced to a lifetime of immeasurable grief when they learned 20 children and 6 adults had been fatally shot in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history and the first at an elementary school.
The pain of losing their happy-go-lucky, loving, sweet little boy was searing.
courtesy Scarlett Lewis
Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin.Briana Sanchez/Austin American-Statesman via AP(2)
What followed were millions of dollars in profits for Jones, whose legions of fans bought into his fabrications, but harassment and death threats for Lewis and Heslin, who testified that people went so far as to shoot at their property.
But on Wednesday, Jones testified during trial that he now believes the shooting was “100% real,“NBC Newsreports.
“Especially since I’ve met the parents. It’s 100% real,” he said.
Alex Jones.Matt York/AP/Shutterstock
Cell Phone Mixup Leads to Perjury Accusations Against Jones
Also on Wednesday, in one of the most dramatic moments of the trial, Jones was caught off guard on the stand when Lewis and Heslin’s attorney, Mark Bankston, told Jones his lawyers had accidentally sent him two years of data from Jones’s entire cell phone — including all of his text messages,CNN reports.
“Your lawyers messed up,” Bankston told him.
Since Jones' lawyers didn’t identify the phone records as privileged, Bankston was able to see firsthand from Jones’s own texts that he had allegedly committed perjury during his sworn testimony.
“That is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have text messages about Sandy Hook,” Bankston said. “Did you know that?”
Visibly uncomfortable, Jones shot back and said, “See, I told you the truth. This is your Perry Mason moment. I gave them [his attorneys] my phone.”
Jones had maintained that he had searched his phone for the words “Sandy Hook” but was never able to find any.
“You know what perjury is, right?” Bankston asked Jones,The New York Timesreports.
Parents Confront Jones: ‘Jesse Was Real’
On Tuesday, Lewis and Heslin were finally able to confront Jones about his lies.
Looking right at Jones, Lewis told him from the witness stand, “Jesse was real. I am a real mom,” she said. “I know you know that, and that’s the problem.”
Jones seemed uncomfortable, shaking his head to the right and left as she addressed him.
“I wanted to tell you to your face,” she said. “I am a mother, first and foremost, and I know you’re a father. And my son existed.”
Jones' false statements “tarnished the honor and legacy of Jesse,” Heslin said on the stand, fighting back tears. “I can’t even begin to describe the last nine and a half years of hell we’ve suffered because of [Jones].
“There’s got to be a strong deterrent that shall prevent him from peddling this propaganda,” Heslin told the court.
This week,Jones told Fox7that the court proceedings were “one of the greatest show trials ever to happen.”
On the day of the shooting, Jones said in an episode of Infowars that the shooting might have been “a staged event,” CBS News reported.
Weeks later, he told a caller that “Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured,” according to Politifact.
Jones' attorneys did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
source: people.com
