UPDATED 11/11, 12:35 a.m. ET: A judge on Thursday ordered Jones to pay another $473 million, which rocketed the total amount owed up to $1.44 billion.
“Judge [Barbara N.] Bellis also essentially froze [Jones’] personal assets, issuing an order saying that he was ‘not to transfer, encumber, dispose or move his assets out of the United States until further order of the court,’” the New York Times writes.
An attorney for the Sandy Hook families, Christopher M. Mattei, said it’s “the first step in making sure that Jones personally will pay every penny he has to the families he spent years tormenting.”
In further praise of the judge’s decision, Mattei said, “Our hope is that this serves to reinforce the message of this case: Those who profit from lies targeting the innocent will face justice.”
See original story below.
Alex Jones wants a redo.
According to the Associated Press, the far-right media figure has asked the court to scrap the nearly $1 billion verdict in his Sandy Hook defamation lawsuit. The suit—brought forth by eight families of Sandy Hook victims—alleges Jones had used his platform to propagate baseless conspiracy theories about the 2012 school shooting, which left 20 children and six adults dead.
Jones had repeatedly claimed that the massacre was an elaborate hoax orchestrated by gun control activists. The plaintiffs said they were falsely accused of being “crisis actors” and were subjected to constant harassment and death threats from those who believed Jones’ claims. The court ultimately ruled in the families’ favor, and ordered the Infowars founder to pay $965 million in compensatory damages to the plaintiffs.
The Connecticut jury also determined that Jones and Infowars’ parent company should pay the plaintiffs punitive damages. The judge will determine that award sometime next month; however, the families have already asked the court to impose “the highest possible” amount, which could be as high as $2.75 trillion, according to Bloomberg.
“The only appropriate punitive damages award in this case is the largest award within the court’s power,” the families said in the filing. “The defendants have acted willfully, maliciously, and evilly, in full knowledge of the harm they are causing people who had no means to fight back, except to bring this case.”
In an effort to secure a new trial, Jones argued that the $1 billion verdict was “unjust and against the weight of the evidence.”
“In short, (Jones and his parent company Free Speech Systems) contend that verdict is exorbitant and a result of passion and prejudice,” his attorney, Norm Pattis, wrote in the motion filed Friday. “Additionally, the (families’) failure to offer any evidentiary standard by which the jury could calculate damages rendered the verdict a species of wild speculation unsupported by law and resulted in a verdict that denies (Jones and FSS) due process of law.”
