Known far-right conspirator Alex Jones was sentenced Friday in Texas to pay a $45.2 million fine to the parents of a child killed in the worst mass shooting in history at a US school, something he had denied. to reality.
The day before, the founder of the Infowars site had already been ordered to pay more than $4 million in damages to Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, whose six-year-old son was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre.
20 children and six adults killed
A young man armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 20 children and six adults in this Connecticut establishment, sparking fear in the United States and reigniting the debate on measures to regulate the sale of firearms.
Alex Jones, a well-known far-right figure and conspiracy theorist, had claimed, against all evidence, on his site that the massacre was just staged by gun opponents.
Earlier Friday, Wesley Ball, the lawyer for the parents of the deceased young man, told the jury: “You have the ability to send a message to the entire country, even the world … And that is to stop Alex Jones .Stop monetizing misinformation and lies.” Wesley Ball had asked them to “make sure he can’t do it again.”
More financial sanctions are expected to follow
These sentences are only the first of a series of processes initiated by the relatives of the victims. Several families had sued him for compensation.
He finally publicly admitted the reality of the murder, refusing to cooperate with the courts.
Therefore, judges in Texas and Connecticut had sentenced him in default to pay damages to the plaintiffs, leaving it to jurors to set their amount.
Other financial sanctions should follow soon and could deprive Alex Jones of his platform.
The murders – recurrent in the United States – are often the subject of conspiracy theories that question the reality of the facts, which sometimes leads to harassment of the relatives of the victims, accused of lying.
Source: BFM TV
