The mother of one of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre has described Alex Jones as the “biggest bully I’ve ever faced”.
Scarlett Lewis, whose six-year-old son Jesse Lewis was murdered in the 2012 massacre, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that testifying at the far-right conspiracy theorist’s first defamation trial was the “hardest thing” she has done since losing her child – but that she had to stand up to try to stop him from bullying others.
“Getting on the stand was something I felt like I had to do. I didn’t want to do it,” she said.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve done since Jesse’s murder but I think when your bully doesn’t stop – I mean this is literally facing the biggest bully I’ve ever faced – you have to do that so that he doesn’t do that to other people.”
Ms Lewis said that she thought about her son’s bravery facing gunman Adam Lanza during the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School when she came to face with Mr Jones’s lies on the stand.
“I think about Jesse. He faced Adam Lanza who was the Sandy Hook shooter and he saved nine of his classmaates’ lives before losing his own,” she said.
“And so I kept thinking about that when I was on the stand and thinking this was the easier of the two. And if he could do what he did at six years old I could certainly do this.”
Last month, Ms Lewis confronted Mr Jones with the damage he had caused by spreading his lies that the Sandy Hook massacre was a “hoax” and that the victims and their families were “crisis actors”.
In heartwrenching testimony, the mother spoke directly to Mr Jones in the courtroom in Texas and questioned him: “Do you think I’m an actor?”
“I am a mother first and foremost and I know you are a father. My son existed,” she told him.
“I am not deep state... I know you know that... And yet you’re going to leave this courthouse and say it again on your show.”
She continued: “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.”
The right-wing extremist was ordered to pay $4.11m in compensatory damages and $45.2m in punitive damages to Ms Lewis and Jesse’s father Neil Heslin in that case.
When asked by TV host Anderson Cooper how she faced “this bloated, damaged person in court, this half human”, Ms Lewis said that she had “feeling and compassion” for Mr Jones.
“My feeling and compassion for Alex Jones did help me on the stand,” she said.
“I don’t want to give my personal power to somebody who is so hurtful and I did that through forgiveness and compassion but it doesn’t mean that his words and actions don’t make me angry.”
Ms Lewis said that she chooses to embrace “forgiveness and compassion” – something which has helped her with “post-trauamatic growth”.
Her comments came as Mr Jones is currently facing his second defamation trial in a court in Connecticut.
The Infowars host took the stand in that trial on Thursday and Friday where he launched into a furious rant saying that was “done apologising” for causing a decade of harassment to the victims’ families.
“I’ve already said I’m sorry hundreds of times. And I’m done saying sorry,” he shouted across the courtroom.
Jurors in Connecticut will decide how much Mr Jones must pay the families in damages in that suit.
Mr Jones began spouting false claims just hours after the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, claiming on his conspiracy site that the mass shooting was “a giant hoax” and that the victims were “actors”.
He continued to push the lies to his followers for years claiming it was a “false flag” operation.
While Mr Jones profited financially from spreading his lies, the victims’ families were subjected to years of in-person and online harassment and threats from his followers.
