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- Alex Jones’ legal team hopes a jury will award the Sandy Hook parents the lowest possible amount.
- An attorney for Jones said the parents deserve a total of eight dollars for their pain.
- The lawyer said Jones is “not that big” but asked jurors to consider his “millions” of viewers.
As the defense unfolded on the final day of Alex Jones’ libel trial, the InfoWars host’s attorney offered contradictions and a paltry offer to the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim: eight dollars.
The amount of money was revealed by Jones’ attorney, Federico Reynal, as lawyers made their closing arguments in the case, asking jurors to consider specific amounts of money that should be awarded to the shooting victim’s family for defamation and damages emotional distress they ask for.
Meanwhile, Kyle Farrar, an attorney representing the parents of the Sandy Hook victim, argued that the two parents deserved a combined $150 million in damages because of the conspiracy campaign Jones led on his InfoWars network, calling the shooting that left 20 dead “farce. and the victims, “agents of the crisis”.
Reynal was adamant Wednesday that the families deserved the lowest possible amount of compensation, which totaled eight dollars.
“Alex Jones ran with a story and made a mistake,” Reynal told the court. “Maybe I would even understand if you said we think you should give them some money for mental health — but I don’t think that’s supported by the evidence.”
During the trial, Jones testified that any damages awarded above $2 million would “bankrupt” his channel. And in perhaps the most bombastic moment of the trial, Mark Bankston, another Sandy Hook attorney, told Jones that his attorney had leaked incriminating phone data to their team.
“Your lawyers messed around and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you’ve sent for the last two years,” Bankston told Jones. “That’s how I know you lied to me when you said you had no messages about Sandy Hook.”
Jones, who has already been found liable for defamation by a Texas court and a Connecticut court for his depiction of the shooting, testified Wednesday that he believes the mass shooting was “100 percent true.” On Thursday, jurors will begin their deliberations.
Reynal later contradicted himself by saying that Jones’ platform “isn’t that big” and that the mainstream media amplified his “mistake.”
But in his closing, Reynal appealed to jurors about alleged threats to media freedom.
“Alex Jones may not be to your particular taste — but millions of Americans tune in to be informed, to be entertained, to be heard,” he said, adding to the impact of Jones’ platform.
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