A conspiracy-monger at last faces the consequences of warping the facts
MONG JESSE LEWIS’S last words was “RUN!” He shouted it during a pause in the shooting that took the six-year-old’s life, along with 19 other children and six adults, at his primary school in Sandy Hook, a small town in Connecticut, in 2012. Nine children who heard him yell “run” survived the shooting. Later that night, his father made his way into the medical examiner’s tent, where his son’s remains lay. According to, by Elizabeth Williamson, he cradled Jesse in his arms.
Several of the victims’ families, who had been harassed and tormented for years by his viewers, sued Mr Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, in four separate lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas. He was found liable by default in all of them as he did not hand over documents, including financial statements, as ordered by the court. A trial in Austin, Texas, this week determined how much Mr Jones must pay Jesse’s parents.
Even in court Mr Jones could not stick to the truth. The presiding judge had to scold him twice for violating his oath to tell the truth on the stand. The next day she had to remind him: “This is not your show.” Watching the judge admonish Mr Jones, who for years has been spewing conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook as well as the Oklahoma bombing of 1995 and the Parkland school shooting of 2018, was, as Charlie Warzel wrote in the“so cathartic”.
The Texan jury took just a day to come back with its decision. Mr Jones’s lawyer asked the jury to award the parents $8, a dollar for each of the compensation charges. The plaintiffs had asked for $150m. It was not about getting a lot of money for themselves. They hoped a big financial verdict might truly serve as a punishment for Mr Jones, and deter other conspiracy theorists. As the lawyer for Jesse’s parents said in his opening statement, “Speech is free, but you have to pay for your lies.
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