The Cost of Lies

Will a Texas jury show Infowars' Alex Jones there is a significant price to pay for his malicious claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax? Will it slow him from spreading more vile lies?

Conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

This week a jury in Austin, Texas, will likely reach a verdict on a request for $150 million in compensatory damages for the painful nightmare Infowars’ Alex Jones layered onto the lives of Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis after the horror they suffered when their six-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, was one of 20 first graders and six educators murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School a decade ago.

It was the extremist Jones, ever-enraged with a microphone and millions of listeners, who exploited this massacre as another money-making opportunity to spread the vile lie that the death of their child was a hoax and the families were actors. Jones reportedly makes over $50 million a year broadcasting conspiracy theories and selling conspiracy videos and books, diet supplements, body armor and other gear for people preparing for doomsday.

The abuse and threats Jones has triggered has not ended for this or other grieving families from Sandy Hook. The parents of Noah Pozner, the youngest Sandy Hook victim, had to move a dozen times after their home addresses and personal information were posted online. Last week Heslin and Lewis had to hire security because of people lingering outside their hotel near the Austin courtroom.

This trial is the first of three trials to determine how much Jones will have to pay relatives of 10 family members who were murdered on Dec. 12, 2012. This follows Jones losing a series of defamation cases last year for claiming that the dead victims and their relatives were actually actors engaged in a “false flag” operation as a pretext for the federal government to push gun control legislation.

The family of Jesse Lewis has underscored that their purpose is to seek justice for their son and do what they can to put a stop to this kind of vicious disinformation that causes so much damage to private people. This is about the need for consequences and costs. “Speech is free, but lies you have to pay for,” the parents’ lawyer, Mark Bankston, told the jury last week. “This is a case about creating change.”

A central focus of the case is a 2017 episode of NBC’s “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly,” in which Heslin criticized Jones for claiming the mass shooting didn’t happen. “I lost my son. I buried my son. I held my son with a bullet hole through his head,” Heslin said. Later, Jones and his Infowar sidekick, Owen Shroyer, aired shows suggesting that Heslin was lying.

In an effort to avoid accountability and save his Infowars broadcast and web operation, Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday. But District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble was not having it: She ordered that the trial proceed to a verdict despite the Chapter 11 filing.

Christopher Mattei, one of the family lawyers for the second trial, offered his blunt assessment on Friday: “Just two days before jury selection is due to begin in Connecticut, Jones has once again fled like a coward to bankruptcy court in a transparent attempt to delay facing the families that he has spent years hurting.”

Of course, Jones’ corrosive impact on the body politic did not begin or end with Sandy Hook. Back in the early ‘90s, he was claiming the federal siege on Branch Davidian and its leader David Koresh in Waco, Texas, was a murderous attack on a peaceful religious community. In 1995, he peddled the lie that the federal government plotted the Oklahoma City bombing.

In 2015, Jones and his conspiracy mongering and anti-government rhetoric increasingly moved from the fringe toward the mainstream when candidate Donald Trump appeared on his Infowars web show; he was subsequently invited to Trump’s nomination at the Republican convention in Cleveland. As his power increased, so did his active involvement, particularly after the 2020 election.

Before Joe Biden was formally declared the winner, Jones invited the Oath Keeper’s leader Stewart Rhodes on his show to spread the lie of election fraud and insist Trump would not be illegally removed. On Dec. 19, Jones urged his millions of listeners to take action on Jan. 6 after Trump promised that day “will be wild.” He also helped find funding for the “Stop the Steal” rally. On Jan. 5, he joined the Willard Hotel “war room” and spoke at a rally that night. And on Jan. 6, he marched to the Capitol grounds from the Elipse with “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander.

Subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 House committee late last year, Jones—fearing self-incrimination—pled the fifth more than 100 times. In a sign of how worried he was, he told Sandy Hook family lawyer Mark Bankston in a deposition back in December, “Believe me, the problems with this [Sandy Hook] is the least of my problems.”

Whether Alex Jones finds a way to hold onto his business after the Sandy Hook verdicts against him and avoids criminal prosecution related to his involvement with Jan. 6, we can take nourishment from the commitment of people to push back against his metastasizing conspiratorial cancer.

When the Sandy Hook families first filed their lawsuits four years ago, Jones sought to hide behind the First Amendment to justify his dangerous claims. But the suits hit back: “The First Amendment has never protected demonstrably false, malicious statements like the defendants’.”

At that time, attorney Bankston said that he had heard Jones’ Texas radio show for years—and came to understand what moves this man.

“For Alex Jones, it appears that the only real thing on his mind is his business,” Bankston told The New York Times. “And if you threatened that, you can make him understand that these kinds of practices have a cost. And if that message goes out to others like him, that’s a victory for these families.”

A substantial verdict against Jones will not only be a victory for the families. It also will be a victory for everyone who cares about the truth and yearns to stem the continuing violence stirred by his dangerous rhetoric and lies.

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