As a Connecticut jury on Wednesday ordered Alex Jones to pay nearly US$1 billion in compensatory damages to the families of several Sandy Hook victims, Jones went live in an “emergency” broadcast on his Infowars website.
Jones, who was not present in the courtroom, cracked jokes as he lost track of the $965 million verdict, which was announced case-by-case. During the Infowars livestream, Jones, 48, claimed he had no real intention of paying the damages owed to the Sandy Hook families.
“Do these people actually think they’re getting any of this money?” Jones asked, according to NBC reporter Brandy Zadrozny.
In a short clip Zadrozny shared to Twitter, Jones is seen mocking the families as several parents weep in the courtroom.
The $965-million verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host for spreading the myth that the massacre never happened and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.
The verdict came in a defamation lawsuit filed by the relatives of five children and three educators killed in the 2012 shooting, plus an FBI agent who was among the first responders. A Texas jury in August awarded nearly $50 million to the parents of another slain child.
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“This must be what hell’s like, they just read out the damages. Even though you don’t got [sic] the money,” Jones said during the livestream, as per NBC reporter Ben Collins. (Jones filed for bankruptcy protection in July.)
“Why not make it trillions?” Jones also joked during the livestream.
Jones claimed the jury had reached the astronomical figure to deter him and his followers from openly questioning the legitimacy of other mass shootings.
“They want to scare everybody away from freedom and scare us away from questioning Uvalde and what really happened there, or Parkland or any other event,” he said during the livestream. “And guess what? We’re not scared, and we’re not going away and we’re not going to stop.”
Jones claimed for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” he could keep the families of the Sandy Hook victims “in court for years.”
“I can appeal this stuff. We can stand up against this travesty,” Jones said during the livestream.
As he called the trial a “joke,” Jones asked his followers to purchase his vitamins and supplements from the Infowars store to support him and the website.
Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer representing the Sandy Hook families, said he and the families are prepared “to chase Alex Jones to the ends of the Earth” in order for him to pay the damages.
Koskoff said the Sandy Hook families, “who never asked for any of this,” have lost all form of safety and sanctuary in their lives because of Jones.
During the trial, several family members provided harrowing testimony about the threats of physical violence from Jones’ staunch followers. One parent testified the grave of their seven-year-old son had been desecrated by one of Jones’ fans, who allegedly urinated on the plot and threatened to dig up the child’s coffin.
“These families have been patient and they will make Alex Jones pay every last dollar that he has,” Koskoff said.
— With files from the Associated Press
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