A jury ruled that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was sentenced to pay an additional $ 45.2 million (£ 37.4 million) to the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim.
He was ordered to do so pay $ 4.1 million (£ 3.3 million) in damages by a jury Thursday to the parents of six-year-old Jesse Lewis, killed in the school massacre in 2012.
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis has successfully sued Jones and his media company, Free Speech Systems, for defamation in October 2021.
The host of the Infowars radio show had repeatedly claimed that the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history was a hoax and staged by gun control activists using actors.
Twenty children and six adults were shot dead by gunman Adam Lanza, who later committed suicide.
Jones has now been sentenced to pay $ 45.2 million in punitive damages by a jury in Texas, although this is less than the $ 75 million (£ 62 million) the family had claimed prior to the sentencing.
Punitive damages are those exceeding the amount of the basic compensation, intended to punish the accused.
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Jury reaches verdict in Alex Jones defamation trial
Court motion denied within hours
On Thursday, Jones filed a mistrial motion, but the Texas judge denied the request.
During the process of determining the amount of damages that parents should be awarded, Jones admitted that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was “100% real“.
However, Mr. Heslin and Mrs. Lewis told jurors that an apology would not be enough and urged them to make Jones pay for the years of suffering he endured them and other Sandy Hook families.
Kyle Farrar, one of the parents’ attorneys, said Thursday he was “very pleased with the verdict”.
Mark Bankston, another member of their team, had accused Jones in court of approaching the trial in bad faith, citing broadcasts claiming that the trial was rigged against him.
He showed a video of Jones saying on his broadcast that the jury pool was full of people who “don’t know what planet they are on”.
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble reprimanded Jones on Tuesday for failing to tell the truth under oath after falsely telling the court he was bankrupt and complying with the discovery of the case.
Jones’s lawyers have not yet commented on the result.
