Nearly a full decade after he began spreading vicious lies about the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, Alex Jones will finally be forced to face a jury.
In 2012, a gunman killed 20 elementary school students and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut. The hateful far-right conspiracy theorist behind InfoWars and other vile outlets has spent the years since claiming the shooting was a hoax and that the grieving parents who had experienced unimaginable tragedy were actors.
Those parents became the victims of real-world threats thanks to Jones’ lies. For years, they were harassed and threatened and doxxed. In 2017, a woman was sentenced to time in prison for sending death threats to the father of a six-year-old boy who was murdered. As part of her plea agreement, upon her release she was ordered to keep a detailed log of her internet activity and was forbidden from accessing InfoWars. That’s how big a role Jones plays in spreading these conspiracies.
This is far from the first time Sandy Hook parents have sued Jones for defamation. He’s been sued many, many times and has even had to take the stand to give a deposition. (During that deposition in 2019, Jones claimed he “almost had like a form of psychosis back in the past where I basically thought everything was staged. In a separate, unrelated custody lawsuit, Jones has said he is basically a “performance artist” and that he doesn’t really believe the things he says in “character” as his on-air persona.)
Jones has made many settlements and been forced to pay many fines in the past. But now he’s finally having to stand trial for a jury to determine how much he will have to pay after a Texas judge found him liable for damages.
Jury selection began Monday. The AP writes:
During the first round of questioning from attorneys for the families, several potential jurors in the initial pool of more than 100 said they held strong beliefs on free speech and questioned whether any punitive damages would be fair. A few others said they would struggle to assign damages that could reach $100 million or more. Yet others said that although they also believe in the principles of free speech, they would not have a problem assigning damages — even a large amount of money — for blatant falsehoods that might have caused harm.
Jones is supposed to face a similar trial in Connecticut after a group of 13 parents and possibly other plaintiffs rejected Jones’ settlement offer of $120,000 each. They called it a “transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs and the memory of their loved ones lost at Sandy Hook.”
(image: Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
