Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been ordered to pay a further $45.2m (£37.4m) to the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim, a jury has ruled.
He was ordered to pay $4.1m (£3.3m) in damages by a jury on Thursday to the parents of six-year-old Jesse Lewis, who was killed in the school massacre in 2012.
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis successfully sued Jones and his media company, Free Speech Systems, for defamation in October 2021.
The Infowars radio show host had repeatedly claimed that the deadliest school shooting in US history was a hoax and staged by gun control activists using actors.
Twenty children and six adults were shot by gunman Adam Lanza, who later committed suicide.
Jones has now been ordered to pay $45.2m in punitive damages by a jury in Texas, although that is less than the $75m (£62m) the family had sought before the decision .
Punitive damages are those that are in addition to the basic compensation amount and are intended to punish the defendant.
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On Thursday, Jones filed a motion to have the trial dismissed, but the Texas judge denied the request.
During the trial to determine how much damages the parents should receive, Jones admitted that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was “100% real“.
However, Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis told jurors an apology would not be enough and asked them to make Jones pay for the years of pain he had caused them and the other Sandy Hook families.
Kyle Farrar, one of the parents’ lawyers, said he was “very satisfied with the verdict” on Thursday.
Mark Bankston, another member of their team, had accused Jones in court of approaching the lawsuit in bad faith, citing broadcasts where he said the lawsuit was rigged against him.
He showed a video of Jones saying on his show that the jury was full of people who “don’t know what planet they’re on.”
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble chastised Jones on Tuesday for not telling the truth under oath after he falsely told the court he was bankrupt and had complied with the discovery in the case.
Jones’ attorneys have yet to comment on the outcome.
