Alex Jones Ordered to Pay $965M to Sandy Hook Families Over Misinformation Campaign

The Jury is out and has decided on Alex Jones' fate.

The Infowars founder and host have recently been ordered by a jury of his peers to pay nearly a billion dollars to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and an FBI agent for the suffering they went through.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting happened on Dec. 14, 2012, leaving 20 children and six adults dead, per the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Alex Jones $1 Billion Penalty Details

Alex Jones has been the target of a weeks-long trial to decide how much monetary compensation he should pay for the emotional damages he caused to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that happened almost a decade ago, per Engadget.

However, the trial had recently ended with a Connecticut jury's decision to award the victims' families and a former FBI agent $965 million as compensation for emotional damages (in the case of the victims' families) and defamation damages (for the former FBI agent), per Gizmodo.

However, it isn't known how much money Jones' victims will receive at the end of the day.

The Texas Tribune called the amount the largest award to date in a "multipronged" legal battle by the victims' families to hold Jones responsible for the conspiracy theories and hoaxes he aired out in his Infowars show.

You may remember that Jones told his audience on Infowars that the shooting was staged and was meant as a pretext for confiscating guns within hours of the shooting. He eventually began to say that the grieving parents were paid actors to hammer the point home. Afterward, he repeated his message in the years that followed.

As a result of Jones' hoaxes and conspiracy theories, the victims' families became the target of harassment and threats by conspiracy theorists who accused them of faking their children's death and emotions.

This abuse happened even when Jones' social media accounts and pages were banned by Facebook, YouTube, and other social media platforms.

Can Jones Pay The Money?

Not only has Jones repeated his hoaxes and conspiracy theories to his audience, but he also got richer after being banned from various social media platforms.

According to Bernard Pettingill, a forensic economist hired by the victims' families to testify during Jones' trial, Jones' net worth could be as high as $270 million due to his conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Pettingill also mentioned that Jones withdrew $62 million in 2021.

Additionally, Jones' Infowars show and its parent company, Free Speech Systems, have filed for bankruptcy protection.

As such, it could be possible that Jones would be unable to pay the full amount. However, the Infowars host mentioned that he would appeal the ruling while he was hosting Infowars.

"Do these people actually think they're getting any of this money?" Jones said, adding that the verdict was a joke and that he could keep the victims' families in court for years.