Alex Jones ordered to pay nearly $1 billion to Sandy Hook families

A Connecticut jury has handed down a massive penalty against Alex Jones today, ordering the InfoWars host to pay damages totaling nearly a billion dollars to the families of children killed during the 2015 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Per Deadline, the amounts were awarded to each family on an individual basis, and included attorney’s fees and compensatory damages, as well as “damages for defamation, slander and emotional distress.”

All of this, of course, stems from comments Jones made in the aftermath of the shooting—in which 20 children were murdered, alongside 6 of the school’s staff—suggesting that the event was a hoax. Parents, accused of being “crisis actors,” have faced years of harassment in the aftermath of Jones’ comments, with many having to move from their homes, and with reports of their children’s graves being defaced.

This is both the largest, and the latest, penalty that’s been issued against Jones in regards to those statements; he was previously hit with a $42.5 million sentence back in August, related to just two of the families involved.

Jones himself wasn’t in court to hear the sentence, and was, in fact, broadcasting InfoWars at the time it was handed down. He reportedly said “This must be what hell is like” when the news broke, according to Deadline.

All told, Jones has built up a bill of roughly $965 million in court cases related to Sandy Hook. That being said, it’s unlikely that Jones will ultimately pay even a fraction of what he’s been hit with here; while documents released during the court cases have shown that InfoWars has sometimes brought in as much as $800,000 a day through Jones’ high-volume scare-mongering, legal caps on civil complaints are likely to cut down the amounts he might end up paying significantly. Even so: The jury verdict sends a clear message of condemnation against him.