Jones ordered to pay heavy price for Sandy Hook lies

A Texas jury has ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay US$45.2 million (NZ$72.5m) in punitive damages to the parents of a child who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, adding to the US$4.1m (NZ$6.5m) he must pay for the suffering he put them through by claiming for years that America’s deadliest school shooting was a hoax.

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis’s 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut, by gunman Adam Lanza.

The trial was the first time Jones had been held financially liable for peddling lies about the massacre, claiming it was faked by the US government in order to tighten gun laws.

Another defamation lawsuit against Jones by a Sandy Hook family is set to start pre-trial hearings in the same Austin court next month.