In a trial that will decide how much money the two Sandy Hook families who have sued right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones get, their attorney on Tuesday asked the jury to award his clients $150 million in damages.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Mark Bankston, claimed that the $150 million sum equated to $1 for each person who he estimated to number in the range of 75 million as believing the erroneous information Jones had spread about the Sandy Hook shooting. The remaining $75 million would go toward compensating the parents for the psychological and emotional suffering they have undergone as a result of Jones and his supporters’ persecution over the past ten years.
Alex Jones was found legally responsible in October for making false statements about the tragedy that claimed 26 lives. Jones is also being sued in Connecticut by the families of other Sandy Hook victims.
Because Jones disobeyed court orders, the case’s judge, Travis County District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, imposed default judgments against him.
After the shooting at Sandy Hook, Alex Jones erroneously claimed that the incident was staged. Jones has since accepted the shooting took place while facing legal action. He claimed that a “kind of psychosis” was what led him to make his fraudulent statements in a 2019 sworn deposition.
Andino Reynal, an attorney defending Jones, charged the plaintiffs’ counsel with deceiving the court in his own opening remarks.
When covering the Sandy Hook shooting, Reynal attempted to paint Alex Jones as someone who had merely made mistakes and indicated that the quick-paced nature of the news cycle was also to blame.
Reynal claimed that thousands of people, not only Jones, were questioning the shooting as a result of what he called “poor coverage” by the mainstream media.
According to Reynal, the evidence will demonstrate that Jones did not subject the parents to harassment during the trial. He also questioned whether Jones’ remarks regarding the school shooting reached the parents.
