[ad_1]
- An attorney representing two Sandy Hook parents told jurors in Alex Jones’ trial to “Get him out.”
- “Alex Jones has zero patience for our society’s inability to speak without lying,” the lawyer said.
- Jury in Jones’ defamation trial weighs Infowars founder’s damages.
“Take him out.”
That’s what a lawyer representing two Sandy Hook parents who sued Alex Jones for defamation over his false claims about the massacre asked a Texas jury Friday as they weigh punishment for the Infowars founder.
“Get him out of this conversation of this misinformation, this negotiation of lies and make sure he can’t do it again,” attorney Wesley Ball said of the far-right conspiracy theorist during his closing arguments in Jones’ punitive damages phase. Action for damages for defamation.
“I’m asking with your verdict not only to take down Alex Jones’ platform, but to make sure he doesn’t rebuild the platform,” he added. “This is punishment. This is deterrence.”
The court in the civil case on Thursday awarded $4.1 million in damages to plaintiffs Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis — parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, who was one of 26 killed in the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
Now the parents’ lawyers want the court to force Jones to pay them $145.9 million in punitive damages – to bring the $150 million in total damages they originally sought at the start of the two-week trial.
“Alex Jones has zero patience for our society’s inability to speak without lying,” Ball told jurors in Travis County District Court. “He has zero patience for alternative facts.”
“I hope we never see someone like him again,” Ball said, adding, “I hope with your verdict he can go.”
Heslin and Lewis sued Jones and his media company, Free Speech Systems, for defamation over his lies about the mass murder.
Jones has already been found liable by default by a Texas court and a Connecticut court for his portrayal of the rampage, which was the deadliest K-12 school shooting in American history.
Ball told the jury that while he is “incredibly grateful” they have already awarded $4.1 million to his clients because it is an amount that will change their lives “forever”, it “does not affect Alex Jones’ life nor a little bit”.
“Your verdict is not punitive or deterrent so far in any way and that’s why this stage is,” Ball said.
Earlier Friday, a forensic economist testified in the case and estimated the combined net worth of Jones and his media company to be between $135 million and $270 million.
Ball told the jury the contents of Jones’ cellphone were was involuntarily sent last month to opposing counsel was a text message from Jones saying he made $4 million in a week “years after” he got off the social media sites.
“We know that everything the man said in the [witness] The attitude is basically a lie,” Ball said of Jones, who testified in his defense during the trial. “When he breathes he lies.”
Jones’ defense attorney, F. Antino Reynal, asked jurors Friday to return a verdict that is “fair and proportionate,” which he suggested was $270,000.
“You’ve already sent a message,” Reynal told the jury. “You sent a message for the first time to a talk show host, to all talk show hosts that their level of care should be different.”
The jury has begun deliberating on the matter.
[ad_2]
Source link
