Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is ordered by a jury in Texas to pay an additional $45.2 million to the relatives of a six-year-old boy who died in the Sandy Hook school shooting. That reports The New York Times. Yesterday, the jury ordered Jones to pay $4.1 million (more than 4 million euros) in damages to the next of kin.
In 2012, twenty children and six adults were shot dead at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, USA. Jones said the massacre was a “hoax”. Even the grieving parents would have been completely made up, played by actors.
The parents of six-year-old Jesse Lewis sued Jones, the founder of the popular platform Infowars, for defamation and inflicting emotional harm.
The $4.1 million in damages is compensation for the damage suffered by Lewis’ next of kin. On Friday, the verdict came to a much higher amount, which counts as a fine that should deter Jones and others from making such statements in the future.
After the Texas case, Jones is still on trial in two other lawsuits filed by relatives of Sandy Hook victims.