A United States (US) court on Tuesday, 12 October, ordered a right-wing conspiracy theorist named Alex Jones to pay compensation of nearly $1 billion to the victims' families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, for saying that the incident was a "hoax".
As many as 26 people were killed, including 20 children, in December, 2012, after a 20-year-old gunman opened fire in Sandy Hook, located in Connecticut. The mass killing is one of the deadliest school shooting incidents in US history.
The recent verdict marks the second conviction for the 48-year-old conspiracy theorist, for spreading falsehoods about the incident. In August, a Texas court had ordered Jones to pay compensation of almost $50 million to the family of another victim.
'Families Are Actors, Plot by US Govt': Claims Made by Jones
Jones had repeatedly alleged on his Infowars programme that the mass shooting never took place, and that the grieving families seen on the news were actors.
He had alleged that the whole incident was a plot by the US government, then led by President Barack Obama, and the Democratic Party to take away the rights of civilians to bear firearms.
The verdict came in a defamation case filed by the families of eight of the victims killed on that day, along with an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who was among the first responders.
Jones was not present in court when the judgment was read out, but reacted to it through his Infowars programme, saying, "All made up. Hilarious. So this is what a show trial looks like. I mean, this is the left completely out of control."
Jones' lawyer, Norm Pattis, called the judgment "unfair" and said that it was a "very dark day" for freedom of speech in the country, Reuters reported.
'Threatened, Abused, Son's Grave Defiled': Experiences of the Victims' Families
Many of the victims' families had said that they had been threatened and harassed over the last 10 years by people who supported Jones' theories.
They said that people used to show up at their homes and record them, and would hurt abuses at them in person and on social media.
Mark Barden, one of the plaintiffs, told the court that one of Jones' supporters urinated on the grave of his son Daniel, who was seven years old when he was killed in the school shooting. They also threatened to dig up his coffin, Barden said.
Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, told the court that people would mail rape threats to her residence.
"I wish that after today, I can just be a daughter grieving my mother and stop worrying about the conspiracy theorists," she said after the judgment was announced.
Robbie Parker, who lost his 6-year-old daughter Emilie in the tragic incident, said that he was proud that "what we were able to accomplish was just to simply tell the truth.”
"And it shouldn’t be this hard, and it shouldn’t be this scary," he added.
Jones' Profits Increased Massively After He Made 'Hoax' Claims
The plaintiffs had accused Jones of using the mass killing to build his audience and mint millions in profits.
Several experts who were called to testify during the course of the trial said that Jones' revenue from product sales had shot up and his audience increased massively when he made the Sandy Hook shooting a major topic on his programme.
Josh Koskoff, the lawyer of one of the plaintiffs slammed the business model used by Jones, saying that it was used to "profit on the backs of people who have just been devastated."
During the course of the trial, Jones admitted in court that he was wrong about the shooting. "I’ve already said ‘I’m sorry’ hundreds of times, and I’m done saying I’m sorry," he had testified.
But on his show, he played to a different tune and remained defiant.
Slamming the proceeding as a "kangaroo court", he claimed that the case was a fabricated conspiracy by the Democrats to put him out of business. He also labelled the judge as a "tyrant" on his show.
Can Jones Afford To Pay the Entire Compensation Amount?
It is, however, unclear how much of the compensation amount Jones can afford to pay. During the trial, he had said that he would not be able to pay any amount over $2 million. Infowars' parent company, Free Speech Systems, had also filed for bankruptcy.
However, an economist who testified in a Texas court had claimed that Jones and his company were worth around $270 million.
If Jones is unable to pay the entire amount, it remains to be seen whether a court will pass an order for his other assets to be attached in the case, as compensation to the victims' families.
The far-right advocate had co-founded Infowars in 1999, through which he would make far-fetched claims regarding several incidents. A lot of the time, he would argue that tragic events, including terror attacks, had been undertaken at the behest of the US government.
Over the years, Infowars gained immense popularity and reached a staggering 10 million monthly visits by 2017, as per Sky News.
Donald Trump, whom Jones strongly supports, had also appeared on his show when he was campaigning for the US presidency.
The Infowars host now faces a third trial in Texas, in a case filed by the parents of yet another slain child.
(With inputs from Reuters and Sky News.)
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