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Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#41

Post by dragonwriter »

IronWolve wrote: post #30

The judge found him guilty of withholding evidence and did a summary judgement of guilty, and moved to the damages portion with a jury. Which is strange, skipping over the evidence trial and going straight to damages. They didnt say what the evidence being withheld was, and no video evidence against him. Thats what would have been interesting to see, the videos the case was based on. Banes Law did a good comment on t…

> Which is strange, skipping over the trial and going straight to damages.

Well, its unusual for a party with a business and sizable assets to protect to do the kinds of things that lead to default judgement, since that's pretty easy to avoid and potentially costly.

But it's not unusual for a court to find default when parties steadfastly refuse to cooperate with court process, and Jones has had default rulings against him in two other Sandy Hook defamation cases.

Which looks a lot like he was afraid that discovery would reveal something much worse than what was at issue in those cases.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#42

Post by lmeyerov »

"Bernard Pettingill told the court that records indicate Jones withdrew $62m for himself from his company in 2021 as his legal troubles grew."

"The trial heard that Jones' business had earned about $800,000 in a single day selling diet supplements, gun paraphernalia and survivalist equipment."

The court records here are great. I've never seen a good analysis on the economics of misinformation, especially the private industry disconnected from state/political actors. Think everyone from big social media platforms to small troll farms down to individual influencers.

One powerful part of security defenses is making attacks economically infeasible, so understanding this is huge. Seeing the finances of an apex misinformation influencer like Alex Jones revealed is fascinating!

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#43

Post by steve_adams_86 »

api wrote: post #33
pessimizer wrote: post #10

I'm a supporter of Jones being able to spread whatever insane theories he wants whether or not he believes them himself, but he slandered the parents of dead children to the degree that some of the most insane and aggressive people in the world think that they're the agents of a world conspiracy with the intent to enslave the planet. $50 mil is a light judgement.

That's the difference between free speech and malicious libel and slander. Jones is a total psychopath. What he did to those grieving families is just beyond despicable. Mentally abusing children who survived a murder rampage is way way beyond just dirty politics, propagandizing, and typical grifting.

I can’t tell if he’s a psychopath or mentally ill. Maybe whoever put the guy on air seems responsible on some level as well.

We love to point the finger at this guy but a lot of people were responsible for many, many insane productions by him, and no one questioned if it should be aired long enough to realize this would be harmful to the victims’ families.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#45

Post by notahacker »

IronWolve wrote: post #30

The judge found him guilty of withholding evidence and did a summary judgement of guilty, and moved to the damages portion with a jury. Which is strange, skipping over the evidence trial and going straight to damages. They didnt say what the evidence being withheld was, and no video evidence against him. Thats what would have been interesting to see, the videos the case was based on. Banes Law did a good comment on t…

It's not at all strange to skip over the evidence trial if one party consistently refuses to participate in the process of providing the evidence. Jones' lawyer accidentally sending the material he falsely claimed he didn't have after some months after he had been found guilty by default wasn't exculpatory...

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#46

Post by dragonwriter »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #25

It's a shame that while perjury during a civil trial is illegal, it's almost never prosecuted. His behavior was particularly egregious and I doubt this judgement will stop him from continuing to target everyone involved in the trial.

I mean he targeted the judge during the trial, which is... not necessarily the smartest thing in the world.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#47

Post by remarkEon »

pessimizer wrote: post #10

I'm a supporter of Jones being able to spread whatever insane theories he wants whether or not he believes them himself, but he slandered the parents of dead children to the degree that some of the most insane and aggressive people in the world think that they're the agents of a world conspiracy with the intent to enslave the planet. $50 mil is a light judgement.

Does anyone have a link to what he actually said? Now I’m curious. I hadn’t really been aware of this most recent Alex Jones shenanigan.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#49

Post by toolz »

pessimizer wrote: post #10

I'm a supporter of Jones being able to spread whatever insane theories he wants whether or not he believes them himself, but he slandered the parents of dead children to the degree that some of the most insane and aggressive people in the world think that they're the agents of a world conspiracy with the intent to enslave the planet. $50 mil is a light judgement.

The lawsuit was filed in 2018 and Jones has multiple videos as early (maybe earlier) as 2016. I'm not sure how this makes any sense. I think Jones is disgusting and pushing paranoia and fear for a living is disgusting, but I can't understand any world where it's just that a person makes a potentially genuine mistake in their opinion/judgement, explicitly corrects that mistake multiple times and then only multiple years after correcting that mistake is sued.

Intent matters and after watching the trial I have very little understanding how the jury came to that verdict other than they just wanted to punish a bad person any way they could.

I think the world will be a better place if Jones and his gross idea of media, disappears, but I have a feeling he's just going to be made into a martyr here.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#50

Post by aronas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Actually, no, the jury verdict on punitive damages is $45.2 million, but that is certain to be reduced before Jones is ordered to pay (there seems to be some dispute over whether a portion of the compensatory damages award is economic or not, and depending on the answer on that, the cap under Texas statutory punitive damages caps would seem to be somewhere between $750k and $1m; even if the plaintiffs succeed in thei…

I was wondering myself about that so I did some sleuthing. This law professor explains that the Texas Constitution provides for "the right of trial by jury to be inviolate": https://twitter.com/heidilifeldman/status/155562807903639142...

The whole Twitter thread has more details but the TLDR is because of the Texas constitution, and the large amount of money at stake, this will almost certainly end up being resolved on appeal in the Texas court system. In particular, to answer the question if the Texas legislature's cap may inhibit the jury's ability to determine the punitive award amount, as the state constitution says they may.

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