Last month, a jury ruled that Alex Jones owed $965 million for spreading lies about the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting that killed 20 students and six faculty members. That figure is now over $1 billion, after a judge ordered that the chili-loving conspiracy theorist must scrap up another $473 million, bringing the total to $1.44 billion.
“The record clearly supports the plaintiffs’ argument that the defendants’ conduct was intentional and malicious, and certain to cause harm by virtue of their infrastructure, ability to spread content, and massive audience including the InfoWarriors,” Connecticut Judge Barabara Bellis wrote in a 45-page ruling. The punitive damages include $150 million for “violations of Connecticut’s Unfair Trade Practices Act, which bans deceptive business practices and unfair competition,” according to the Hollywood Reporter, “and about $323 million for the plaintiffs’ attorney fees and costs.”
Eight victims’ relatives and the FBI agent testified during a monthlong trial about being threatened and harassed for years by people who deny the shooting happened. Strangers showed up at some of their homes and confronted some of them in public. People hurled abusive comments at them on social media and in emails. And some received death and rape threats.
Jones reacted to the ruling on his show, calling it “ridiculous” and whining about how he won’t be able to pay it, no matter how much medically-dubious krill oil he sells. “Well, of course I’m laughing at it,” he ranted. “It’d be like if you sent me a bill for a billion dollars in the mail. Oh man, we got you. It’s all for psychological effect… when they know full well the bankruptcy going on and all the rest of it, that it’ll show what I’ve got and that’s it, and I have almost nothing.” No amount of begging will help him now.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)