Alex Jones built a media machine that generated enormous profit by spreading conspiratorial lies and the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims who were among his targets deserve millions of dollars in compensation, the family lawyers told the jury as their defamation case against Jones neared an end Thursday.
In his closing argument, family lawyer Christopher Mattei did not suggest a damage amount, but presented the jury with a formula for reaching one: Determine fair compensation for a person harmed by a single lie, told once. Then multiply that sum by 550 million, a figure that an expert trial witness for the families said reflects Jones’ massive audience reach across his broadcast, internet and social media platforms.
“You may say that is astronomical,” Mattei said. “It is. It is. It is exactly what Alex Jones did. He built a lie machine to push this stuff out. He built a lie machine … But you know something, that’s not enough. We know that 550 million is just a fraction of the people that got that message.”
“You have seen evidence of defamation on an historic scale,” Mattei said.
“When he took the stand here, I told him he put a target on their backs and that is what he did,” Mattei told the jury. “He knew his army was coming after them. Every single one of these families was drowning in grief and Alex Jones put his foot right on top of them.”
Jones’ lawyer, Norman A. Pattis, conceded his client’s claims, that the school shooting was a hoax and the grieving parents were actors, is despicable. But Pattis accused lawyers for the families of appealing to emotion by doing what they accuse Jones of — fomenting anger.
“Alex invented fear,” Pattis said. “Alex invented anger. Alex invented what is wrong with this world. Kill Alex and we’ll all live happily ever after … The angrier you get the more money they will get. You are sort of like a pinball machine: Put enough money in and pull the lever and maybe all that money will pop out.”
“I suspect Alex Jones will never be silenced. He is a mad prophet warning of the dystopia to come,” Pattis said. “The easy thing to do would be to tar and feather Alex Jones. But that is not what the law requires. The law requires that you serve equally, coolly and dispassionately to evaluate the evidence and render a fair, just and reasonable verdict.”
“They are asking for damages for their distress” Pattis said. “And from the plaintiff’s perspective. there cannot be enough … I am asking for equal justice under the law for a despicable human being.”
