Facts

• On Fri., jurors in Texas ordered Infowars founder Alex Jones to pay $45.2M in punitive damages - on top of the $4.1M in compensatory damages ordered the prior day - for making false claims about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The comments have since been retracted.^[1]
• The amount levied against Jones is far from the $150M that the plaintiffs sued for, but the jury is expected to deliberate on whether Jones owes any punitive damages in a separate, shorter trial on Friday.^[2]
• Jones had claimed multiple times that the Sandy Hook shooting, which killed 20 children and 6 adults in Newtown, Conn., was a "hoax", a "false flag," and even "manufactured." However, in 2019, he acknowledged that the incident was real.^[3]
• Although Jones initially claimed that a jury award of just $2M would mean financial ruin, an accountant tasked with scrutinizing his company, Free Speech Systems, said that he had withdrawn around $62M from Infowars in the last 14 years and received roughly $9M in cryptocurrency donations to his personal accounts.^[2]
• The trial is the first of three brought by 10 families of the victims who won defamation lawsuits against Jones last year. They all won by default after he failed to provide documents ordered by the court.^[4]
• Jones faces another trial over his comments in Connecticut in September. The jury selection is expected to start next week.^[5]