Alex Jones ordered to pay almost $1 billion to Sandy Hook families

Alex Jones
(Image credit: Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images)

Infowars founder Alex Jones and parent company Free Speech Systems have been ordered by a Connecticut jury to pay $965 million in damages to the families of eight victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. This is the largest amount to date that Jones has had to pay for spreading falsehoods about the 2012 shooting, The Washington Post reports.

Jones has been found liable for defamation for calling the shooting a hoax and alleging that the victims' families were actors, resulting in their harassment, reports The New York Times. The case presented a particularly bad financial "risk" for Jones, considering he was found to have violated Connecticut's Unfair Trade Practices Act (under which there is no cap on punitive damages), the Times continues.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Devika Rao, The Week US

 Devika Rao has worked as a staff writer at The Week since 2022, covering science, the environment, climate and business. She previously worked as a policy associate for a nonprofit organization advocating for environmental action from a business perspective.