InfoWars founder Alex Jones ordered to pay $4.1m over false Sandy Hook claims

After being denied a request for a mistrial, a jury handed down their verdict against the far-right conspiracy theorist.

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $4.1m in damages over his claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting which claimed 26 lives was a hoax.

It comes after the InfoWars website founder was denied a request for a mistrial after his lawyers mistakenly turned over his cellphone records to the opposing lawyers.

“I don’t think it’s a mistrial based on this,” Texas Judge Maya Guerra Gamble told an emergency hearing called to discuss the inadvertent release of the material by Jones’ lawyers.

Jones, also host of a popular radio show, has been found liable in multiple defamation lawsuits brought by parents of the victims of the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

The case is the first of the defamation cases against Jones to reach the damages phase.

The 48-year-old Jones claimed for years on his show and website that the Sandy Hook shooting was “staged” by gun control activists but has since acknowledged it was “100 per cent real.”

US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been hit with multiple defamation lawsuits filed by parents of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre – which he repeatedly called a hoax. Picture: Getty Images

The Texas case was brought by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose six-year-old son Jesse Lewis was among the children slain by a 20-year-old gunman in the worst-ever school shooting in the United States.

During the final day of testimony on Wednesday, Jones denied lying in court after being confronted by solicitor, Mark Bankston, who revealed he’d been mistakenly sent a cache of Mr Jones’ private text messages.

A complete digital copy of two years worth of text messages were inadvertently sent by Mr Jones’ lawyer to Mr Bankston, the solicitor representing the parents of Sandy Hook victim Jesse Lewis.

Mr Bankston said the text messages were evidence of perjury, after Mr Jones claimed there were no text messages related to the mass shooting on his mobile phone.

“Your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone, with everything text message you’ve sent for the past two years,” Mr Bankston said.

Alex Jones, seconds after being told that his lawyer mistakenly send a huge cache of texts to Sandy Hook families’ attorney:

“This is your Perry Mason moment” pic.twitter.com/f6byn6N6VA

— Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) August 3, 2022

“That is how I know you lied to me when you said you did not have text messages about Sandy Hook,” he said.

Mr Jones said he was being truthful and called the accusation from Mr Bankston a “Perry Mason moment”.

“My lawyers sent it to you but I’m hiding, okay,” Mr Jones said, before the judge warned the pair to stick to answering and asking questions.

The shocking exchange was streamed in a live video of the trial, which had received more than 6 million views by Wednesday afternoon.

DAMNING VIDEO AIRED IN COURT

The court was shown a video of Jones depicting the judge presiding over his defamation case on fire and saying the jury “doesn’t know what planet they’re on”.

Bankston, showed the court a video from a Friday episode of InfoWars, where the judge presiding over his case is depicted in a doctored image of her engulfed in flames.

The image was admitted into evidence.

Jones argued that it was Lady Justice on fire in the picture and not the judge whose face was superimposed behind her.

Bankston then asked Jones if he connected the judge to child traffickers and paedophilia on the show and introduced another clip for impeachment purposes.

Jones claimed that the clip was out of context and maintained that he is taking the trial “as serious as cancer”.

Mr Bankston continued: “You say that you’re taking this trial seriously. You’re telling the world that someone rigged the court and picked these jurors”.

The next video shows Jones telling his InfoWars viewers that the jury in his defamation case was full of “extremely blue collar folks” who “don’t know what planet they’re on”.

Jones attempted to distance himself from previous falsehoods that the shooting was a hoax, saying it was “crazy” of him to repeatedly make this claim and that the shooting was “100 per cent real”.

Earlier, Jones told the court he felt “good” because he was being afforded the opportunity to push back against the plaintiffs and news media when he took the stand on Tuesday.

“I never intentionally tried to hurt you,” he told Heslin and Lewis from the stand.

Jones said “the internet had a lot of questions” about the Sandy Hook shooting, and so did he. Jones argued he simply had “tried to find out what actually happened.”

Heslin and Lewis both spoke in court on Tuesday, telling a jury that the lies pushed by Jones have stained the legacy of their son and tormented them for years.

After the jury had left the courtroom following Jones’ testimony, Bankston accused Jones and his lawyer, Federico Andino Reynal, of trying to “poison” the trial.

Alex Jones:"I take this as serious as cancer."

Here's the clip from Infowars:"Judge Maya Gamble comes from CPS who has been exposed for human trafficking and working with pedophiles."

Bankston asks #AlexJones: So that's what you mean when you say you're taking this seriously? pic.twitter.com/vPWWbpq1CL

— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) August 3, 2022

#AlexJones testified that he was under a lot of pressure when he said that nobody died in the Sandy Hook shooting. "And I truly when I said those statements. When I say something, I mean it that I really couldn't believe that it was totally staged, that point," Jones said. pic.twitter.com/yul33bMC5d

— Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) August 3, 2022

Jones has lashed out at the judicial proceedings taking place, making unfounded claims last week that he was being tried in Texas before a “kangaroo court.” InfoWars has also published content attacking the judges overseeing the cases in vicious terms.

Jones’ media company, Free Speech Systems, which is the company that operates InfoWars, filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday.

Jury selection for a similar trial involving Jones and Sandy Hook families commenced on Tuesday in Connecticut, where Jones was also found liable for damages earlier this year.

But jury selection was suspended after Jones’ attorneys filed documents in federal court to remove the case for now due to Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy filing.

Lawyers representing some Sandy Hook families have accused Jones of having drained Free Speech Systems of assets in recent years as part of an effort to protect himself from potential judgments he may be ordered to pay.

The Sandy Hook gunman, Adam Lanza, 20, used a Remington Bushmaster rifle to carry out the massacre. It ended as police approached the scene and Lanza took his own life.

– additional reporting AFP