Far-right conspirator Alex Jones was sentenced on Thursday August 4 to pay more than four million dollars to the parents of a boy killed in the worst shooting ever in an American school, which he had denied was real.
This sentence, pronounced by a jury after ten days of trial, is only the first of a series of proceedings brought by the relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook school against the founder of the Infowars site.
The massacre, only a staging
In 2012, a young man armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 20 children and six adults in this Connecticut establishment, causing fear in the United States and reigniting the debate on measures to regulate the sale of weapons to fire.
Alex Jones, a well-known figure on the far right and follower of conspiracy theories, had, against all evidence, affirmed on his site that the massacre was only a staging led by opponents of firearms.
According to the parents of the victims, his lies had energized his hearings, allowing him to pocket millions of dollars, while they became the target of harassment campaigns.
Several families had sued him for compensation.
He had finally publicly admitted the reality of the killing, while refusing to cooperate with the courts.
Judges in Texas and Connecticut had therefore condemned him by default to pay damages to the plaintiffs, while leaving it to jurors to set their amount.
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On Thursday, they awarded $4.1 million in damages to Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, whose six-year-old son died in Sandy Hook, and who initiated the lawsuit filed in Texas.
Further financial sanctions are expected to follow soon and could deprive Alex Jones of his platform.
