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

(Image credit: Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images)

published 12 October 2022

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.

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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.

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