Alex Jones still must pay $1.3B Sandy Hook defamation verdict, appeals court rules

Published

6 months ago

December 16, 2024

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A Connecticut appeals court on Friday largely upheld a nearly $1.3 billion defamation verdict against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in a case accusing the Infowars founder of spreading lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting.

A three-judge panel of the Connecticut Appellate Court found that a jury’s October 2022 decision to award $965 million in damages plus attorneys fees and costs to families of the shooting’s victims was not unreasonable given the mental anguish they suffered due to the lies by Jones about Sandy Hook.

In affirming the verdict, the judges found fault only with a portion awarding $150 million in damages under a state unfair trade practices law, finding that should be thrown out because it did not properly apply to the facts of the case.

Jones claimed for years that the 2012 shooting deaths of 20 students and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., were staged with actors as part of a government plot to seize guns from Americans. He has since acknowledged that the mass shooting occurred, but plaintiffs said Jones cashed in for years off his lies about the massacre.

An attorney for the Sandy Hook families, Alinor Sterling, praised the ruling.

“The jury’s $965 million rebuke of Jones will stand, and the families who have fought valiantly for years have brought Alex Jones yet another step closer to true justice,” Sterling said in a statement.

Jones’ lawyer Norm Pattis said in a statement that the jury was falsely led to believe Jones made millions of dollars off the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories and that Jones was to blame for the families’ anguish.

“We had hoped the Appellate Court would have seen through the charade and farce that this trial became. It didnt,” Pattis said, adding that he plans to appeal to the Connecticut Supreme Court.

Jones and the parent company of his Infowars site, Free Speech Systems, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2022 after the verdict in Connecticut and another in Texas, where a jury in a similar case awarded other Sandy Hook parents $49 million.

In November, the Onion parody news website announced that it would purchase Infowars in a bankruptcy auction, though a losing bidder connected to Jones is challenging the sale.

A bankruptcy judge will consider whether or not to approve the Onion’s purchase of Infowars at a Monday court hearing in Houston.

Politics

Banking Committee chair sets September goal for market structure bill

Published

1 hour ago

June 27, 2025

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Banking Committee chair sets September goal for market structure bill

After passing the GENIUS stablecoin bill, Republican leadership on the Senate Banking Committee has turned its sights to digital asset market structure.

Environment

Podcast: Xiaomi shocks with YU7, Tesla Robotaxi launch, Rivian brings back tank mode, and more

Published

3 hours ago

June 27, 2025

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Podcast: Xiaomi shocks with YU7, Tesla Robotaxi launch, Rivian brings back tank mode, and more

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Xiaomi shocking the industry with YU7, Tesla’s Robotaxi launch, Rivian bringing back tank mode, and more.

The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.

Today, the episode is live at 12:15 a.m instead due to Fred’s travels in China and Seth’s in.

As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

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After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 12:15 a.m. ET (or the video after 1 a.m. ET):

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World

Japan executes ‘Twitter killer’ who murdered and dismembered nine people

Published

4 hours ago

June 27, 2025

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Japan executes 'Twitter killer' who murdered and dismembered nine people

A man guilty of murdering nine people, most of whom had posted suicidal thoughts on social media, has been executed in Japan.

Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the “Twitter killer”, was sentenced to death in 2020 for the 2017 killings of the nine victims, who he also dismembered in his apartment near Tokyo.

His execution was the first use of capital punishment in the country in nearly three years and it was carried out as calls grow to abolish the measure in Japan since the acquittal of the world’s longest-serving death-row inmate Iwao Hakamada last year.

He was freed after 56 years on death row, following a retrial which heard police had falsified and planted evidence against him over the 1966 murders of his boss, wife and two children.

Eight of Shiraishi’s victims were women, including teenagers, who he killed after raping them. He also killed a boyfriend of one of the women to silence him.

Police arrested him in 2017 after finding the bodies of eight females and one male in cold-storage cases in his apartment.

Investigators said Shiraishi approached the victims via Twitter, offering to assist them with their suicidal wishes.

Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki, who authorised Shiraishi’s hanging, said he made the decision after careful examination, taking into account the convict’s “extremely selfish” motive for crimes that “caused great shock and unrest to society”.

“It is not appropriate to abolish the death penalty while these violent crimes are still being committed,” Mr Suzuki said.

There are currently 105 death row inmates in Japan, he added.