LIVE AT 2:30 2-hour wildfire evacuation notice issued for some Fort McMurray neighbourhoods
A wildfire evacuation alert for some Fort McMurray residents has been updated to a two-hour evacuation notice.
A Texas jury Thursday ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay more than US$4 million -- significantly less than the $150 million being sought -- in compensatory damages to the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Sandy Hook massacre, marking the first time the Infowars host has been held financially liable for repeatedly claiming the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history was a hoax.
The Austin jury must still decide how much the Infowars host should pay in punitive damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 children and six educators who were killed in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut.
The parents had sought at least US$150 million in compensation for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Jones' attorney asked the jury to limit damages to US$8 -- one dollar for each of the compensation charges they considered -- and Jones himself said any award over $2 million "would sink us."
It likely won't be the last judgment against Jones -- who was not in the courtroom -- over his claims that the attack was staged in the interests of increasing gun controls. A Connecticut judge has ruled against him in a similar lawsuit brought by other victims' families and an FBI agent who worked on the case. He also faces another trial in Austin.
Jones' lead attorney, Andino Reynal, winked at his co-counsel before leaving the courtroom. He declined to comment on the verdict.
Outside the courthouse, the plaintiffs' attorney Mark Bankston insisted that the US$4.11 million amount wasn't a disappointment, noting it was only part of the damages Jones will have to pay.
The jury returns Friday to hear more evidence about Jones and his company's finances.
In a video posted on his website Thursday night, Jones called the reduced award a major victory.
"I admitted I was wrong. I admitted it was a mistake. I admitted that I followed disinformation but not on purpose. I apologized to the families. And the jury understood that. What I did to those families was wrong. But I didn't do it on purpose," he said.
The award was "more money than my company and I personally have, but we are going to work on trying to make restitution on that," Jones said.
Bankston suggested any victory declarations might be premature.
"We aren't done folks," Bankston said. "We knew coming into this case it was necessary to shoot for the moon to get the jury to understand we were serious and passionate. After tomorrow, he's going to owe a lot more."
The total amount awarded in this case could set a marker for the other lawsuits against Jones and underlines the financial threat he's facing. It also raises new questions about the ability of Infowars -- which has been banned from YouTube, Spotify and Twitter for hate speech -- to continue operating, although the company's finances remain unclear.
Jones, who has portrayed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights, conceded during the trial that the attack was "100% real" and that he was wrong to have lied about it. But Heslin and Lewis told jurors that an apology wouldn't suffice and called on them to make Jones pay for the years of suffering he has put them and other Sandy Hook families through.
The parents testified Tuesday about how they've endured a decade of trauma, inflicted first by the murder of their son and what followed: gun shots fired at a home, online and phone threats, and harassment on the street by strangers. They said the threats and harassment were all fuelled by Jones and his conspiracy theory spread to his followers via his website Infowars.
A forensic psychiatrist testified that the parents suffer from "complex post-traumatic stress disorder" inflicted by ongoing trauma, similar to what might be experienced by a soldier at war or a child abuse victim.
At one point in her testimony, Lewis looked directly at Jones, who was sitting barely 10 feet away.
"It seems so incredible to me that we have to do this -- that we have to implore you, to punish you -- to get you to stop lying," Lewis told Jones.
Barry Covert, a Buffalo, N.Y., First Amendment lawyer who is not involved in the Jones case, said the US$4 million in compensatory damages was lower than he would have expected given the evidence and testimony.
"But I don't think Jones can take this as a victory," he added. "The fact is, $4 million is significant even if we might have thought it would be a little higher."
Jurors often decline to award any punitive damages after deciding on a compensation figure. But when they choose to, the punitive amount is often higher, Covert said. He said he expects the parents' attorneys to argue that jurors should send the message that no one should profit off defamation.
"They will want jurors to send the message that you can't make a quarter of a billion in profit off harming someone and say you'll just take the damages loss in court," Covert said.
Jones was the only witness to testify in his defence, and he only attended the trial sporadically while still appearing on his show. And he came under withering attack from the plaintiffs attorneys under cross-examination, as they reviewed Jones' own video claims about Sandy Hook over the years, and accused him of lying and trying to hide evidence, including text messages and emails about the attack. It also included internal emails sent by an Infowars employee that said "this Sandy Hook stuff is killing us."
At one point, Jones was told that his attorneys had mistakenly sent Bankston the last two years' worth of texts from Jones' cellphone. Bankston said in court Thursday that the U.S. House Jan. 6 committee investigating the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol has requested the records and that he intends to comply.
And shortly after Jones declared "I don't use email," Jones was shown one that came from his address, and another one from an Infowars business officer telling Jones that the company had earned US$800,000 gross in selling its products in a single day, which would amount to nearly $300 million in a year.
Jones' media company Free Speech Systems, which is Infowars' parent company, filed for bankruptcy during the two-week trial.
------
Associated Press writer Michael Tarm in Chicago contributed to this report.
A wildfire evacuation alert for some Fort McMurray residents has been updated to a two-hour evacuation notice.
Canadian LifeLabs customers who filed an application for a class-action settlement began receiving their payments this week, though at a much lower amount than initially expected.
Nobel laureate Alice Munro, the Canadian literary giant who became one of the world's most esteemed contemporary authors and one of history's most honoured short story writers, has died at age 92.
Wildfires have led Environment Canada to issue air quality advisories for parts of B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, as forecasters warn the smoke could drift farther east.
An American accused of sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania college student in 2013 and later sending her a Facebook message that said, 'So I raped you,' has been detained in France after a three-year search.
The annual list of Canada's top restaurants in the country was just released and here are the places that made the 2024 cut.
Ontario Provincial Police are responding to a fatal collision involving two vehicles on Highway 417 in Ottawa's west end on Tuesday morning.
The Israeli flag is flying at Ottawa City Hall today to mark the country's national day, with plans to hold a private ceremony to mark Israel's Independence Day. There is a significant police presence at City Hall, including security barriers outside the main doors.
A bus carrying farmworkers in central Florida overturned on Tuesday, killing eight people and injuring about 40 other passengers, authorities said.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.