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New York (CNN Business) Right-wing talk show host Alex Jones will have to pay the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim a little more than $4 million in compensatory damages, a jury decided Thursday, capping a stunning & dramatic case that showcased for the public the real-world harm inflicted by viral conspiracy theories.
The award from the jury was far less than what the plaintiffs, Scarlett Lewis & Neil Heslin, had asked for. At the start of the trial, attorneys for Lewis & Heslin asked the jury to award their clients $150 million in compensatory damages.
A separate, shorter trial during which punitive damages will be discussed is now expected. Punitive damages are awarded when the court finds the defendant's behavior to be especially offensive.
The decision from the jury is a partial ending to a years-long process that began in 2018 when Lewis & Heslin sued Jones & his company, Free Speech Systems, which is the parent of the right-wing media organization Infowars.
Jones baselessly said in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, in which 26 people were killed, that the incident was staged. Facing multiple lawsuits, Jones later acknowledged the shooting occurred. He testified in court this week that he now believed it to be "100% real."
But Jones failed to comply with court orders during the discovery process of the lawsuit. His failure to do so led to Heslin & Lewis winning default judgments judgements against Jones.
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