Alex Jones fined $42.5 million in punitive damages in defamation case

One day after its defendant was be hit with $4.1 million in compensatory damages—and not long after it provided one of the all-time great videos of online schadenfreude in the process—the trial of Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis versus InfoWars host Alex Jones has now dropped a much bigger bombshell: A sentence of $42.5 million in punitive damages levied against Jones.

This is per CNN, which reports that plaintiff attorney Wesley Todd Bail didn’t mince words when addressing the jury before the sentencing, asking them to “send a very very simple message, and that is, stop Alex Jones. Stop the monetization of misinformation and lies. Please.”

The Heslin and Lewis case is the first of several civil cases Jones is currently facing, after being accused of defaming the parents of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. Heslin and Lewis, the parents of one of the kids killed during the shooting, both testified at the massive amounts of hate and violence directed at them after Jones began talking on his show about theories that the shooting had been faked, calling it “a giant hoax”; you probably remember it from being some of the vilest shit you’d been exposed to online at the time. Jones testified this week that he now believes the shooting was “100 percent real.”

Both today’s punitive damages, and the previous $4.1 million in compensatory damages, will go to the family. Jones’ attorney stated their intent to appeal, citing a cap in Texas on punitive damages that’s just $750,000 per plaintiff. She also noted that Jones will continue to go on the air “today, he’ll be on the air tomorrow, he’ll be on the air next week.” (Indeed, footage of Jones’ apparent post-verdict InfoWars broadcast, in which he appears to be grunting and howling like a far-less-sympathetic or impressive version of a stuck pig, has already been circulating online.)