Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been ordered to pay an extra $US45.2 million ($65.4 million) in punitive damages to the parents of a six-year-old boy who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
The defamation verdict against Jones came about because of his repeated false claims that the nation’s deadliest school massacre — where 20 students and six teachers died — was a hoax.
Initially he was ordered by the court to pay $US4.1 million in compensatory damages to the parents of Jesse Lewis. The punitive damages will be on top of that amount.
Jones’s attorney plans to appeal to try to lower the amount he is required to pay, and his conduct in the courtroom has exposed him to new legal perils.
Let’s take a look at the fallout for Jones, the likelihood he will pay the damages and what comes next.
Will Jones pay? If so, how much?
A jury ordered Jones to pay Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis $US4.1 million in compensatory damages for the suffering he caused them by saying the shooting that killed their son, Jesse Lewis, was staged to increase gun control.
The jurors also settled on $US45.2 million in punitive damages against Jones.
It is the first time that Jones has been held financially liable for his false claims.
After the trial, Ms Lewis said that Jones had been held accountable, however, his lawyers plan to appeal and to seek to reduce the damages.
Legal experts say it is likely Jones will not pay the full amount.
In most civil cases, Texas law limits how much defendants have to pay in “exemplary” — or punitive — damages to twice the “economic damages” plus up to $US750,000.
Jurors are not told about this cap, and eye-popping verdicts are then often hacked down by judges.
Austin attorney Russ Horton said was “almost a surety” that the damages against Jones would be cut to conform with the law, either by an appeals court or by the trial judge.
A Virginia judge did just that in Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, cutting the $US10 million in compensatory damages that a jury awarded Depp to $US350,000.
What Jones can afford has also been disputed.
Free Speech Systems — the parent company of his website, InfoWars — filed for bankruptcy protection during the first week of the trial.
Jones testified that any award over $US2 million would “sink us”, but economist Bernard Pettingill testified that Jones and his company were worth up to $270 million.
Mr Pettingill said Jones withdrew $62 million from the firm in 2021, when default judgements were issued in that case and two other Sandy Hook defamation suits.
Since the verdict, Jones has urged InfoWars’ supporters to buy the products he sells to allow him to continue the show and his legal fights.
“If we don’t get solvent and get enough money to come out of this bankruptcy, they’ll appoint a receiver and start selling off the equipment,” Jones said.
Could Jones face criminal perjury charges?
Jones appeared to be caught in at least one lie while on the witness stand, when a lawyer for the parents suing him revealed he had digital copies of texts and other content from Jones’s mobile phone.
The messages — including communications about Sandy Hook — were accidentally emailed to the parents’ lawyer by one of Jones’s lawyers.
Jones sought to shrug the revelation off in cross-examination, ridiculing an opposing lawyer and denying that he had lied.
However, legal experts say the episode could open Jones up to a possible perjury charge.
Criminal charges of perjury are rare and difficult to prove, but Jones’s prominence may make him an attractive target, especially in liberal Austin.
“It would be very hard to imagine a state prosecutor going after someone in a civil case for perjury,” attorney Benson Varghese said.
“The chance are slightly higher for Jones, given the high-profile case.”
Aggravated perjury, the charge frequently brought in Texas for lies on the witness stand, is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
A spokesman for the Travis County District Attorney’s Office — which would handle a potential criminal case against Jones — declined to comment.
Will Jones face sanctions for his behaviour?
Even if prosecutors never pursue a case, Jones could face further consequences from Judge Maya Guerra Gamble.
Before the trial, lawyers for the parents suing Jones filed a motion asking the judge to sanction Jones for failing to produce evidence.
Judge Gamble is set to take up that motion. In court, the judge repeatedly admonished Jones, telling him to tell the truth.
She scolded him further for testifying that he was bankrupt.
“This is not your show,” Judge Gamble told Jones.
“Your beliefs do not make something true. You are under oath.”
Judges have wide discretion to set sanctions, including fines, imprisonment and other punishments, but it’s rare to see them imposed.
Avi Moshenberg, a lawyer for the parents, declined to say whether they would seek other sanctions, but said “there were certainly some troubling things that happened during trial”.
Jones and the investigation into the January 6 US Capitol attack
Jones’s lawyers accidentally handing over his text messages in the case also exposes him to further scrutiny from the US House committee examining the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
The committee has subpoenaed Jones to testify, with the panel’s chairman accusing the conspiracy theorist of helping to organise a rally near the Capitol that preceded the insurrection.
Now, the lawmakers reportedly have Jones’s texts.
An attorney for the parents who have been suing Jones, Mark Bankston, gave the committee two years’ worth of Jones’s messages, CNN reported.
On his show on Tuesday, Jones downplayed the significance of the messages and said they went up to April 2020.
“It’s six months of limited texts,” Jones said.
“It’s a fraction of my phone.”
How many other cases have been filed against Jones?
Before the trial in Austin, Jones had already been found liable in a separate defamation lawsuit in Texas and another in Connecticut by relatives of Sandy Hook victims.
The other Texas case was filed by Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, whose son, Noah, was killed in the massacre.
And the Connecticut case has the potential for an even larger award because it consolidates three lawsuits filed by 15 plaintiffs, a former FBI agent who responded to the school, as well as relatives of nine Sandy Hook victims.
It will be up to a Connecticut jury to decide what, if any, damages Jones owes in that case, although state law could also limit what he would have to pay.
The trials — which were scheduled to start next month — have been complicated by Free Speech Systems filing for bankruptcy protection.
However, Mr Horton, the Austin lawyer, said the cases could potentially proceed against Jones personally while Free Speech Systems was in bankruptcy court.
He warned that filing for Chapter 11 gave the bankruptcy court tremendous power to examine Jones’s finances.
“Bankruptcy is not a place to hide out if you have anything to hide,” Mr Horton said.
AP