It also included internal emails sent by an Infowars employee that said “this Sandy Hook stuff is killing us. And he came under withering attack from the plaintiffs attorneys under cross examination, as they reviewed Jones’ own video claims about Sandy Hook over the years, and accused him of lying and trying to hide evidence, including text messages and emails about Sandy Hook. Jones was the only witness to testify in his defense. Barden told HuffPost he and his wife, Jackie. Hockley and Barden each had a 6-year-old boy at the school. In the years following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Mark Barden and Nicole Hockley have been some of the most outspoken parents of victims. Jones - who has been banned from major social media platforms for hate speech and abusive behavior - has portrayed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights and complained that he’s been “typecast as someone that runs around talking about Sandy Hook, makes money off Sandy Hook, is obsessed by Sandy Hook.”Įight days of testimony included videos of Jones and Infowars employees talking about the Sandy Hook conspiracy and even mocking Heslin’s description in a 2017 television interview that he’d held his dead son Jesse’s body “with a bullet hole through his head.” Heslin described that moment with his dead son to the jury. Nicole Hockley, Mother Of Dylan Hockley, And Mark Barden, Father Of Daniel Barden. “And he just watered that seed over and over until it bore fruit: cruelty and money.”ĭuring his testimony, Jones said he’s tried in the past to back off the hoax claims, but “they (the media) won’t let me take it back.” “The day Sandy Hook happened, Alex Jones planted a seed of misinformation that lasted a decade,” parents’ attorney Kyle Farrar told the jury in closing arguments. Jones’ attorney asked the jury to limit damages to $8 - one dollar for each of the compensation charges they are considering - and Jones himself said any award over $2 million “would sink us.”Īt the end of Jones’ testimony, Mark Bankston, an attorney for the family, pulled a crumpled dollar bill out of his pocket, showed it to Jones, and put it down in front of the parents. That portion will involve a separate mini-trial with Jones and economists testifying to his and his company’s net worth. Once they determine whether Jones should pay the parents compensation for defamation and emotional distress, it must then decide if he must also pay punitive damages.
Jurors began considering damages Wednesday. They will also ask the jury to assess additional punitive damages. Now, Heslin and Lewis are asking the jury in Austin for $150 million in compensation for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. “It seems so incredible to me that we have to do this - that we have to implore you, to punish you - to get you to stop lying,” Lewis told Jones.Ĭourts in Texas and Connecticut have already found Jones liable for defamation for his portrayal of the Sandy Hook massacre as a hoax involving actors aimed at increasing gun control. At one point in her testimony, Lewis looked directly at Jones, who was sitting barely 10 feet away.
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