(Reuters) – Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay $473 million in punitive damages on top of a nearly $1 billion verdict handed down last month for his defamatory claims about the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting, a Connecticut judge ruled Thursday.
The ruling comes a month after a jury in Waterbury, Connecticut, found Jones must pay more than a dozen relatives of Sandy Hook victims $965 million in compensatory damages for falsely claiming they were actors who staged the shooting as part of a government plot to seize Americans’ guns.
The plaintiffs had asked a judge to impose additional punitive damages, citing what they said was the “historic” scale of Jones’ wrongdoing and his “utter lack of repentance.” Jones has since acknowledged the shooting took place but refused to apologize to the families during his trial testimony.
In a statement, plaintiffs’ attorney Chris Mattei said the ruling “serves to reinforce the message of this case: Those who profit from lies targeting the innocent will face justice.”
(This story has been corrected to change the day of the week in the first paragraph to Thursday instead of Monday)
(Reporting by Jack Queen; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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