Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $4.1 mn in Sandy Hook damages

Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages to the parents of a child killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School

A Texas jury on Thursday ordered far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay more than $4 million in damages to the parents of a child who was killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. 

The jury deliberated for one day before deciding on the amount of compensatory damages Jones should pay for falsely claiming that the Sandy Hook shooting was a "hoax."

The 48-year-old Jones has been found liable in multiple defamation lawsuits brought by parents of the Sandy Hook victims, and the Texas case was the first to reach the damages phase.

The $4.1 million is far less than the $150 million in compensatory damages sought by the plaintiffs in the Texas case, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of six-year-old son Jesse.

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

"They sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cellphone with every text message you've sent for the past two years, and when informed did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way," Bankston said.

Bankston noted that Jones had repeatedly said under oath that a search of his cellphone had not produced any text messages about Sandy Hook, but there were indeed such messages in the records he accidentally received.

Arguing for a mistrial, F. Andino Reynal, a lawyer for Jones, said he had followed up the mistaken release of the records with an email saying "Please disregard."

Bankston said "various federal agencies" had asked for the phone records along with the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of former president Donald Trump.

Jones has also testified to the committee behind closed doors.

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