Washington: A jury in the US state of Connecticut has ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $965 million in damages to the family members of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
The American far-right radio show host must pay the amount in compensatory and punitive damages to 15 plaintiffs, the relatives of eight shooting victims, Xinhua news agency quoted the jury’s decision as saying on Wednesday.
The families sued Jones after he claimed the shooting on December 14, 2012, at the school in Newton, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by US authorities to impose gun control measures.
The shooting left 20 children aged six to seven and six adults dead.
Jones, 48, has apologised for spreading the conspiracy and was ordered in August to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the relatives of another victim in Texas.
“I’m in bankruptcy,” Jones said on Wednesday live on his show. “You want to fight. That’s fine.”
He now acknowledges the attack was “100 per cent real”.
Jones still faces a third defamation trial over the Sandy Hook shooting that begins in Texas later this year.
–IANS