Sandy Hook Families Seek $2.75 Trillion From Alex Jones

Sandy Hook families have asked a Connecticut judge to order Alex Jones to pay $2.75 trillion in damages in addition to the almost $1 billion a jury awarded for defamation, claiming only “the highest possible punitive damages,” will stop the Infowars host from continuing to harm them.

Bloomberg reports the families said they’re entitled to the amount because Jones broke a state law barring the sale of products using false statements. They reached the sum by multiplying the state law’s $5,000 per-violation fine by the 550 million social media exposures Jones’s audience received on his Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts in the three years following a school shooting that claimed the lives of 20 first graders and six educators in 2012.

Jones called family members “crisis actors” for years and said their loved ones weren’t murdered during an elementary school massacre. He denied his statements were defamatory.

State Judge Barbara Bellis will determine the final amount Jones must pay. She has previously said Jones violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, or CUTPA, by selling supplements and survival gear during shows that featured his false claims about Sandy Hook.

The Infowars host claims he’s bankrupt and has vowed not to pay the families a dime. On Nov. 12, a Connecticut jury awarded eight families and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting $965 million for the harassment they suffered from Infowars’ fans who bought into Jones’s hoax theory.

Jones put Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, into creditor protection in Houston federal bankruptcy court this year, shortly before a different jury in Texas awarded one Sandy Hook family almost $50 million in defamation damages. The conspiracy theorist faces a third defamation trial by a final Sandy Hook family in Texas later this year.