-
Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have “>10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Give this articleGive this articleGive this article
Families of victims leaving court during the Alex Jones trial last month.
These are the plaintiffs from the Sandy Hook case heard in Connecticut, what they said in court, and the breakdown of the total of $965 million in damages awarded to them by the jury:
Compensatory Damages
Robbie Parker, father of Emilie, 6, who was killed at Sandy Hook. Mr. Parker and Emilie’s mother, Alissa, the only parent to testify who was not a plaintiff, described years of vitriol from Mr. Jones’s supporters after Mr. Parker was mentioned by name repeatedly on Mr. Jones’s broadcasts. While the jury was instructed not to consider whether Mr. Jones mentioned each plaintiff by name in his Sandy Hook broadcasts, Mr. Parker was singled out for years of attacks by Mr. Jones, who repeatedly aired a clip of a news conference the night after the shooting in which Mr. Parker, the first Sandy Hook relative to speak publicly, let out a short, nervous laugh upon finding a sea of cameras and reporters, when he expected to fine only one. Mr. Jones falsely claimed that the laugh was “proof” Mr. Parker was an “actor.”
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $60 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $60 million
Total damages: $120 million
William Sherlach was the husband of Mary Sherlach, the Sandy Hook school psychologist, who was killed in the hallway shortly after the gunman entered the school. Mr. Sherlach said he received notes and emails from conspiracy theorists, including a printed note on his car windshield, saying Robbie Parker was an actor.
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $9 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $27 million
Total damages: $36 million
David and Francine Wheeler, parents of Ben Wheeler, 6. The Wheelers met while working in theater in New York. Their work as performers opened them up to particular abuse by conspiracy theorists who believed they were actors. Hoaxers spread a bogus theory that Mr. Wheeler and William Aldenberg, the F.B.I. agent who was also a plaintiff, were the same person portraying a grieving parent and an emergency worker. Ms. Wheeler said she attended a conference for grieving mothers where a fellow attendee told her that Sandy Hook never happened.
David Wheeler:
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $25 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: : $30 million
Francine Wheeler:
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $24 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $30 million
Understand the Cases Against Alex Jones
Card 1 of 6
A united front. Alex Jones, a far-right conspiracy theorist, is the focus of a long-running legal battle waged by families of victims of a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. Here is what to know:
Pushing misinformation. Mr. Jones used his Infowars media company to spread lies about Sandy Hook, claiming that the attack in 2012, in which 20 first graders and six educators were killed, was a hoax. The families of the victims say Mr. Jones’s lies have added to their devastation and his followers have harassed them, threatening their safety.
Defamation lawsuits. The families of 10 Sandy Hook victims sued Mr. Jones in four separate lawsuits. The cases never made it to a jury; Mr. Jones was found liable by default in all of them because he refused to turn over documents, including financial records, ordered by the courts over four years of litigation.
Mr. Jones’s line of defense. The Infowars host has claimed that his right to free speech protected him, even though the outcome of the cases was due to the fact that he failed to provide the necessary documents and testify.
Three trials. There will be three trials in total to determine how much Mr. Jones must pay the families of the Sandy Hook victims. The first happened in Austin, Texas, and a second trial is currently underway in Connecticut. The third trial is tentatively scheduled for later this year in Austin, but a date has not yet been set.
Compensatory and punitive damages. On Aug. 4, a jury in the Texas trial awarded the parents of one of the children killed in the mass shooting more than $4 million in compensatory damages and another $45.2 million in punitive damages. The current trial in Connecticut could be financially ruinous for Mr. Jones because of what is allowed by state law.
Total damages: $109 million
Jacqueline and Mark Barden, parents of Daniel Barden, 7. The couple described receiving messages from conspiracy theorists who said they had urinated on their son’s grave and wanted to dig up his body. Mr. Barden also received a doctored photo of a man with his own face superimposed, standing over the remains of a murdered child, accusing him of killing his own son as part of the imagined “plot.”
Jacqueline Barden:
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $10 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $18.8 million
Mark Barden:
Defamation/Slander Damages, past and future: $25 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $32.6 million
Total damages: $86.4 million
Nicole and Ian Hockley, parents of Dylan Hockley. 6. The Hockleys described receiving threats and abuse sent to their social media accounts and to two nonprofits they helped found, Dylan’s Wings of Change, which teaches social-emotional and leadership skills to children, and Sandy Hook Promise, a gun violence prevention organization. The threats were so frequent and graphic that Ms. Hockley said she took out a large life insurance policy and sleeps with knives and mace in her bedroom.
Nicole Hockley:
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $32 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $41.6 million
Ian Hockley:
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $38 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $43.6 million
Total damages: $155.2 million
Jennifer Hensel, mother of Avielle Richman, 6. Ms. Hensel described a stream of threats sent to her by people who falsely claimed, among other things, that Avielle was alive and being impersonated by a living Newtown girl who sang with the Sandy Hook choir at the 2013 Super Bowl. Ms. Hensel told jurors she scanned parking lots for threats and checked the back seat of her car, fibbing to her toddler that she was making sure the family dog had not climbed inside.
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $21 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $31 million
Total damages: $52 million
The Soto family, relatives of Vicki Soto, a first grade teacher killed at Sandy Hook. They include: Donna Soto, Vicki Soto’s mother; Carlee Soto Parisi and Jillian Soto-Marino, her younger sisters; and Carlos Mathew Soto, her younger brother. In 2015, at a five-kilometer run sponsored by the family to honor Ms. Soto’s memory, Matthew Mills of Brooklyn accosted the family, waving a photo of them and claiming “this never happened,” Ms. Soto Parisi recalled. Mr. Mills was arrested and charged with breach of peace. Alex Jones had previously been in touch with Mr. Mills, a Sept. 11 denier who disrupted a 2014 Super Bowl news conference, calling him a “soldier” and trying to enlist him to disrupt other events.
Donna Soto
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $18 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $30 million
Carlee Soto Parisi
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $30 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $36 million
Carlos Mathew Soto
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $18.6 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $39 million
Jillian Soto-Marino
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $30 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $38.8 million
Total damages: $240.4 million
William Aldenberg, an F.B.I. agent who responded to the shooting. A photo taken of Mr. Aldenberg on the day of the massacre was circulated along with the false claim that he and David Wheeler, whose son Ben died, were the same “crisis actor” posing as both a grieving father and an emergency worker. Mr. Aldenberg, one of the first law enforcement officers into the school, suffered severe P.T.S.D. after the shooting, and described feeling responsible for the torment inflicted on Mr. Wheeler by people who believed the bogus theory.
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $45 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $45 million
Total: $90 million
Erica Lafferty, daughter of Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, the principal who confronted the gunman and was killed shortly after he entered the school. Ms. Lafferty also received abuse from conspiracy theorists, including rape threats. She told the jury she had moved several times because hoaxers kept publishing her address and personal information online.
Defamation/slander damages, past and future: $18 million
Emotional distress damages, past and future: $58 million
Total: $76 million
Source: nytimes.com
