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Alex Jones: Judgment a "joke"
Photo: MIKE SEGAR/ REUTERS
US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay almost a billion dollars in damages on Wednesday.
Jones himself did not attend the verdict in the courtroom, preferring to make fun of it live in front of the camera.
Who is the man?
And will the victims get their money?
The most important questions and answers.
Why was Jones convicted?
Because of his false claims about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December 2012. A 20-year-old man broke into the school in Newtown, Connecticut, and took out 20 children, ages six and seven, and six with an assault rifle adults shot.
He had previously killed his mother in her apartment building.
The perpetrator committed suicide.
His motive is unclear.
He is said to have had mental problems.
However, radio host Alex Jones, founder of the right-wing website »Infowars«, spread the word just hours after the crime that the killing spree had been faked in order to have a pretext for the confiscation of weapons.
Grieving parents are just actors.
Relatives of the killed children and teachers later filed a lawsuit against Jones.
Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting: The 2013 Investigators' Final Report
Now Jones has been convicted of making the false claims.
He has to pay a total of 965 million US dollars in damages, the amount resulting from the sums that the court awarded the 15 plaintiffs.
According to the New York Times, the largest single sum of $120 million will go to a father of a dead girl who Jones described as an actor.
The man later received death threats.
And in August, a Texas grand jury convicted Jones of paying $45.2 million to the parents of a murdered child.
A billion dollars - can he afford it?
The law professor Jessica Levinson spoke to the US broadcaster CBS of an “astronomical sum” that would probably drive Jones into bankruptcy and could mean the end of “Infowars”.
Because Jones probably can't pay the one billion dollars.
The moderator had declared in court that he could not raise more than two million US dollars.
His company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy in August.
The Sandy Hook families doubt that.
"Alex Jones isn't financially bankrupt, he's morally bankrupt," Kyle Farrar, a lawyer for the families, told the New York Times in August.
Jones is said to be hiding his money in questionable financial vehicles from which he and his family benefited.
Jones said he was insolvent due to $54 million in debt.
But he allegedly owes the money to the company PQPR – according to the New York Times and Bloomberg, however, he controls the company himself.
In court, an analyst put the value of Jones' "Infowars" network at around $270 million.
Although that is still a long way from one billion, it should give the plaintiffs hope that they will receive at least part of the money to which they are entitled.
How does Jones react?
Alex Jones called the conviction a "joke."
When the verdict was passed, he was not in the courtroom, but followed the process on his live show.
He made fun of the compensation payments.
"Do these people really think they're getting some of that money?" he said, according to NBC reporter Brandy Zadrozny.
The New York Times reports that Jones asked his audience for donations to save Infowars.
“For hundreds of thousands of dollars, I can keep her in court for years.
I can appeal this stuff," he said, according to the newspaper.
In court, Jones had been largely unapologetic, saying he had apologized so many times that he didn't want to repeat the apologies.
Who is Alex Jones?
Jones is America's top conspiracy theorist.
The 48-year-old claims alleged global elites have banded together against the US to destroy the country.
Same-sex marriages are a conspiracy by a global secret society "to bring about the collapse of the family" and "abolish God."
He was "95 percent certain" that the World Trade Center was not destroyed by an attack on September 11, 2001, but blown up by the US government.
And, unsurprisingly, Jones is a vocal supporter of former US President Donald Trump.
"The man who tells Trump the lies," wrote SPIEGEL in a 2017 report about Jones.
For example, he endorsed Trump's false claim that his defeat by current President Joe Biden in the 2020 election was due to massive fraud.
Jones spread his crude claims primarily through his website »Infowars«.