Jury ordering Alex Jones to pay $965 million in compensatory damages
By Mikaela Mariano
On 13 October 2022, in the state of Connecticut, six jurors ordered Alex Jones, a right-wing American radio host, to pay $965 million in compensatory damages to the families of the victims in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. These damages come on top of a separate Texas verdict in August where Jones was ordered to pay the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the 2012 shooting $49.3 million.
The fifteen plaintiffs make up the parents, spouses and siblings of the twenty children and six educators murdered when a lone gunman made his way to Sandy Hook Elementary School. They had suffered years of harassment and death threats by Jones’ followers. In his InfoWars program, Jones commented that the Sandy Hook Shooting was a hoax by the US Government who wanted to take gun ownership away and stated that the families were paid to fake their loved ones’ deaths. Jones directly accused Robert Parker, who was awarded the most damages ($120 million from the Jury), of being a ‘Crisis Actor’, being accused of lying about his daughter’s murder, Emilie Parker. The families presented evidence suggesting that Jones spread lies and vilified the families because Jones’ knew the hoax he created caused engagement from the audience and increased sales for his nutritional supplements and survivalist gear.
The plaintiffs had four claims against Jones that consisted of invasion of privacy, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, and defamation. With Jones’ eventual refusal to comply with discovery (despite the Court allowing him more time when he asked and limiting the scope of discovery), the Court entered default judgement against him. After this liability was established by default and the case went to trial on how much damages Jones had to pay. The partial verdict in this case was based only on compensatory damages. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $965 million after four days of deliberation. This is partial as the jury found that the families were entitled to punitive damages in the form of attorney fees and litigation costs. However, these fees and costs are to be determined at a later date. As such, Judge Barbara Bellis, will decide whether Jones owes punitive damages and how much.
But the question that has arisen in everyone’s mind is will the plaintiffs ever get paid such a big sum of damages by Jones? Interestingly, Devin Stone, an American Lawyer and Youtuber under the name ‘LegalEagle’, proposed his reason for this question. He observed that Jones says he only has about $2 million to his name, but had raised millions of dollars after the Texas Verdict came up and the worth of InfoWars is between $100 - $250 million. Stone hypothesised the plaintiffs’ lawyers could argue that these corporations (InfoWars and associated businesses) are legally the same entity and the corporate veil should be pierced. If successful, Jones personal assets and corporate assets could be seized.