Sandy Hook families seek massive punitive damages

Infowars founder Jones asks court for new trial

Sandy Hook families are asking a Connecticut judge to order massive punitive damages for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who separately asked the court for a new trial and a revocation of the original nearly $1 billion judgment in the Sandy Hook defamation case.

The families said in court documents that they are seeking the “highest possible punitive damages award,” which could be as high as $2.75 trillion, according to one calculation included in a court memorandum.

The plaintiffs, however, also offered other calculations and do not specifically name an amount they are seeking in punitive damages, but say in their motion that it would be up to the court to decide.

“Wrongdoing in this case is historic in its scale, in the wrongdoers’ utter lack of repentance and in the certainty of the wrongdoer’s attempts to cover up their misconduct is relevant to assessing the reprehensibility of his conduct,” the motion says.

“To ignore the degree of the defendants’ blameworthiness, the harm intentionally caused, or the defendants’ unrepentant intent to continue attacking the plaintiffs would excuse conduct that cannot be excused. CUTPA punitive damages are typically assessed as a multiple of compensatory damages, and that approach is surely appropriate here; it will be for the Court to determine what multiple makes the appropriate punitive and deterrent response to the defendants’ wrongdoing,” the motion said. “That decision lies within the Court’s sound discretion.”

Both parties filed their requests with the Connecticut Superior

Court in Waterbury less than 10 days after a jury ordered Jones to pay $965 million in compensatory damages to the families of eight Sandy Hook shooting victims and an FBI agent for perpetuating a false claim that the 2012 massacre was a hoax — a lie that the plaintiffs said resulted in them enduring years of harassment and abuse from Jones’ followers.

But Jones’ lawyers contend that their client deserves a new trial and ask for the court to toss out the jury’s decision, writing that the original “verdict is exorbitant and a result of passion and prejudice,” and that “the court’s ruling on pre-trial motions and its evidentiary rulings resulted in a complete abdication of the trial court’s role in assuring a fair trial and that the amount of the compensatory damages award exceeds any rational relationship to the evidence officered at trial.”

They also claimed that the emotional, 3 ½-week trial “resembled a memorial service, not a trial.”

A representative for the Sandy Hook plaintiffs’ legal team declined comment Saturday.

The lawyers assessed the potential for $2.75 trillion punitive damages award, one of three they calculated, but did not propose, in the document, based on an act that allows the Connecticut “Attorney General to recover penalties of up to $5,000 for each willful use of an unfair or deceptive trade practice.” They argue that, at minimum, Jones willfully committed an unfair or deceptive trade practice 550 million times when he promulgated his Sandy Hook hoax conspiracies across his expansive broadcast, internet and social media audience.

“The only appropriate punitive damages award in this case is the largest award within the Court’s power,” the court motion says. “Only the highest possible punitive damages award has any hope of deterring the defendants from continuing to attack the plaintiffs. ... The highest possible award is also necessary to deter Jones copycats.”

The Sandy Hook massacre on Dec. 14, 2012, was the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. After a gunman murdered 20 first graders and six staff members at the elementary school, Jones began claiming on his InfoWars website and his radio broadcast that the shooting was a hoax, staged to render support for gun control.

Jones’ decade-worth of attacks on the families and first responders, claiming they were not grieving parents but actors, led Jones’ followers to torment, threaten and harass the Sandy Hook families, they testified at the Connecticut trial.

In the defamation trial, the jury awarded a total of $965 million in compensatory damages, ranging between $28.8 million to $120 million for each of the 15 plaintiffs.

In August, a Texas jury awarded $49.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the parents of one Sandy Hook victim. A third lawsuit against Jones is also pending in Texas.

In the past, Jones’ lawyers have said that their client can’t afford to pay any damages surpassing $10 million.

An expert witness in the Texas lawsuit, however, said Jones and his InfoWars parent company Free Speech Systems LLC are worth more than $200 million. The company has filed for bankruptcy protection from payouts.

Lawyers representing the Sandy Hook families claim that Jones enacted his attacks on their clients willfully and maliciously. They described his conduct as “evil” and worthy of the highest degree of blameworthiness and reprehensibility.

“Jones’s attack on the families and the first responder who are plaintiffs in this case has gone on for nearly 10 years and shows no signs of letting up,” they wrote in their punitive damages request.

“Alex Jones perpetrates this attack for one reason: greed. This campaign of lies feeds Jones’s bank accounts, fills his cryptocurrency wallets and defines his brand. No lie about these plaintiffs is too cruel, too immoral or too dangerous. Alex Jones will never treat them like real people, because they are too valuable to him as targets,” the court document says.

Fifteen relatives of nine of the victims, and an FBI agent who was part of the law enforcement response, sued Jones in Connecticut and described to the jury in highly emotional testimony how harassment by people who believe Jones’ conspiracy theories shattered their lives.

The jury found that the relatives are entitled to punitive damages in the form of attorney fees and the costs of preparing and pressing the suits. Judge Barbara Bellis will hear argument from both sides and decide on an award.

The jury also found that Jones and Free Speech Systems violated Connecticut’s unfair trade practices law because his broadcast, internet and retail sales businesses drove profit with broadcasts that intentionally — and falsely — vilified the families. The families presented evidence suggesting that Jones spread lies because he knew his Sandy Hook hoax programming caused spikes in audience numbers and in sales at his retail sites where he sold nutritional supplements and survivalist gear.