Sandy Hook families asked a Connecticut judge to order Alex Jones to pay $2.75 trillion in damages in addition to the almost $1 billion a jury awarded for defamation, claiming only “the highest possible punitive damages,” will stop the Infowars host from continuing to harm them.
The families said they’re entitled to the amount because Jones broke a state law barring the sale of products using false statements. They reached the sum by multiplying the state law’s $5,000 per-violation fine by the 550 million social media exposures Jones’ audience received on his Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts in the three years after a school shooting that claimed the lives of 20 first graders and six educators in 2012.
Jones called family members “crisis actors” for years and said their loved ones weren’t murdered during an elementary school massacre. He denied his statements were defamatory.
