A Texas jury has determined that Alex Jones, host of the show Infowars, must pay $42.5 million in punitive damages in a defamation lawsuit over his false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting was a “hoax.”
Jones was not in the courtroom to hear the verdict, which came a day after the same 12-member jury determined that Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems LLC—Infowars’ parent company—must pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages in the case, bringing the total Jones was ordered to pay in damages in the lawsuit to $49.3 million.
Federico Andino Reynal, Jones’s lead attorney, told the judge immediately after the verdict that he will appeal and ask the courts to drastically reduce the size of the verdict….