Why was Infowars’ Alex Jones in court throughout 2021 and 2022?
I’m sure many of you are aware of who Alex Jones is: A far-right conspiracy theorist who became popular for his absurd beliefs and theories. His show, Infowars, gained traction due to his animated personality and gave him a platform to spread his extreme theories.
His antics have finally caught up to him though after losing a series of defamation cases last fall that requires him to give close to a billion dollars to various plaintiffs, which is well out of the range of money he has available. But why exactly did he find himself in court so much over the past couple of years?
Sandy Hook
Perhaps the most insane theory Jones ever spread was his belief that the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was faked. Less than a couple of hours after the massacre was reported, Jones had already started making claims that it was a “hoax” and was staged by the government to try and promote anti-gun propaganda.
The issue hear wasn’t just the comments he made, but more what his comments led to. The parents of the victims became subjected to years of harassment both in-person and online.
Back in 2014, Andrew David Truelove stole memorial signs of the dead children and was subsequently arrested. Truelove also routinely harassed the parents by telling them that their children never existed in the first place. In 2020, former Infowars contributor Wolfgang Halbig was arrested after constantly harassing family members and leaking their personal information online.
The Legal Battles
While all of this was happening, Jones was continuing to build his platform profiting off the lies he was spreading. This prompted 10 families to file four different defamation lawsuits in both Texas and Connecticut in an attempt to make Jones pay for the suffering and anguish he caused.
The verdict was reached rather quickly after Jones failed to hand over critical evidence prior to the trial. The evidence in question was a series of texts essentially proving Jones had been lying about the whole thing. A jury was subsequently selected to determine exactly the amount Jones would have to pay the victims’ families.
After a rather bizarre series of events in which Jones failed to show up to court twice, numerous attempts from his legal team to delay the hearings, including claims that he was too sick to come into court and that the stress the trial would cause would be much for him to handle, he was seemingly well enough to still film episodes for Infowars. Despite Jones’ best attempts at delaying the proceedings, a verdict was reached.
The Rulings
In an unsurprising decision, the jury sided with the victims’ families, awarding each of them an award ranging from $28.8 million to $120 million. The total amount came out to around $965 million spread among eight of the families.
The remaining two parents, Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, won their case in Texas against Jones back in August, being awarded around $50 million in damages.
Jones’ attorneys attempted to argue against this value and claimed that the families should focus solely on the monetary harm caused to them. Their claims were denied, and Jones will seemingly have to pay the given amount to the families.
What is next for Alex Jones?
While the court ruled that Jones has to pay that amount of money, it doesn’t necessarily mean he will. Jones’ net worth was something that was debated about quite a bit during the case. Jones himself said his net worth was no more than $5 million.
However, it was revealed that his show averaged $53.2 million in gross annual revenue, a bit far away from the $5 million figure given. Regardless, it’s clear that Jones, allegedly, does not have the money right now and likely won’t anytime soon.
But what can happen is the collection of any money or profit he makes in the future. While this still likely won’t lead to the total amount being reached, it will at least ensure that the fine is being collected and should go a long way in preventing Jones from making false and hurtful claims like this in the future.
In all, Alex Jones got what was coming for him. Trying to profit off parents grieving over their dead children is a despicable and sickening action. The fact that he still refuses to believe it was real tells you all you need to know about him. He took part in the torment of a group of people trying desperately to move on from a horrific moment in their life.
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