Historic verdict: conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ordered to pay nearly $1 billion
Sylvie Claire / October 13, 2022
American far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered Wednesday to pay nearly $1 billion in compensation to families of victims of a 2012 school massacre that he had denied.
Alex Jones had claimed that the relatives of the students killed in the Sandy Hook school in Connecticut were actors. A jury in that state decided that he had to pay them and an FBI agent 965 million dollars in compensation for defamation and moral damage.
The families had filed suit against Alex Jones, claiming that they were harassed by fans of the conspiracy theorist in the belief that the massacre never happened and that the grieving relatives were playing a role.
In 2012, a young man armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook.
Present in the courtroom, relatives of the victims cried at the announcement of the verdict.
Alex Jones followed the hearing live on his website Infowars and said he would appeal, saying he did not even have "two million in cash ».
The owner of the Infowars site had already been ordered to pay nearly $50 million in Texas to a couple whose six-year-old son was mowed down at Sandy Hook.
The conspiracy theorist had finally publicly admitted the reality of the killing. But he refused to cooperate with the courts, so judges in both states convicted him in absentia. They left the sentencing to juries.