Alex Jones Trial Verdict Oct 12th Nearly 1 Billion in Damages to Plaintiffs For DefamatoryStatements

Video Transcript:

Good afternoon. Today, a jury representing our community and our nation rendered a historic verdict. A verdict against Alex Jones' lies and their poisonous spread and a verdict for truth and for our common humanity. But we will be at it as long as it takes. And if you're out there right now and you're one of Alex Jones' audience members and you're considering giving him money, I just want you to know that based on the jury's verdict today, it's not a very good bet. And to go back to what Robbie Parker said, all Alex Jones does is take from you, exploit you, lie to you, feed your fears and your anxieties and your mistrust. And the only person that benefits and that equation is him. Well that stops. That's stopping today. Well that stops. That's stopping today. All right Mr. Farah. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, would the jury please listen to your verdict as it is read. The verdict, read the jury, the verdict as it damages in this case. We award damages to each plaintiff against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems LLC as follows. Room number one, compensatory damages, instructions, still in both numbers for each plaintiff then go to section two. Please then your damage, damages assessments for each plaintiff on the lines below. Two plaintiff Robbie Parker, a defamation slash slander damages passed in future $60 million. B, emotional distress damages passed in future $60 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff, Robert Parker and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, and by May and by B total $120 million. The final verdict is initial five jury number one. Two plaintiff dated Wheeler, a defamation slash slander damages passed in future $25 million. The emotional distress damages passed in future $30 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff David Wheeler and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. Total fair justice, reasonable damages passed in future $25 million. Two plaintiff, a defamation slash slander damages passed in future $24 million. B, emotional distress damages passed in future $30 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff, Francie Wheeler and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. Total $54 million. Initial five jury number one. Two plaintiff, Jacqueline Barton, a defamation slash slander damages passed in future $10 million. B, emotional distress damages passed in future $18 million, $800,000. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Jacqueline Barton and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. Total $38 million. Initial five jury number one. Two plaintiff Mark Barton, a defamation slash slander damages passed in future $25 million. B, emotional distress damages passed in future $32 million, $600,000. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Mark Barton and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. Total $57 million. $600,000. Initial five jury number one. Two plaintiffs, Nicole Hawkeley. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $32 million. B, emotional distress damages passed in future $41 million, $600,000. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Nicole Hawkeley and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. Total $73 million. $600,000. Initial five jury number one. Two plaintiffs, the in Hawkeley. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $38 million. B, emotional distress damages passed in future $43 million, $600,000. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Ian Hawkeley and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. Total $51 million. $600,000. Initial five jury number one. Two plaintiff Jennifer Hensel. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $21 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Jennifer Hensel and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. $52 million. Initial five jury number one. Two plaintiffs, the in Hawkeley. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $18 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Nama Soto and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. $48 million. Initial five jury number one. Two plaintiffs, Carly Soto and Parisi. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $30 million. The emotional distress damages passed in future $36 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Carly Soto and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. $66 million. Initial five jury number one. Two plaintiff Carlos Matthew Soto. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $18 million. $600,000. The emotional distress damages passed in future $39 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Carlos Matthew Soto and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. $57 million. Two plaintiffs, Carly Soto and Parisi. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $30 million. The emotional distress damages passed in future $38 million. $800,000. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Carlos Matthew Soto and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. $68 million. Two plaintiffs, William Aldenburg. Defamation slash slander damages passed in future $38 million. $800,000. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Carly Soto and Parisi. Two plaintiffs, William Aldenburg. Defamation slash slander damages passed in future $45 million. The emotional distress damages passed in future $45 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Carlos Matthew Soto and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. $68 million. $800,000. Initial five jury number one. Two plaintiffs, William Aldenburg. Defamation slash slander damages passed in future $45 million. The emotional distress damages passed in future $45 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Carlos Matthew Soto and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and 9 b. $68 million. $800,000. Initial five jury number one. Two plaintiffs, William Aldenburg. Defamation slash slander damages passed in future $45 million. The emotional distress damages passed in future $45 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Carlos Matthew Soto and Parisi. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $45 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Carlos Matthew Soto and Parisi. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $18 million. The emotional distress damages passed in future $58 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Carlos Matthew Soto and Parisi. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $45 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff Carlos Matthew Soto and Parisi. A defamation slash slander damages passed in future $9 million. The emotional distress damages passed in future $27 million. Total fair justice, reasonable damages to plaintiff William Sirlatch and against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, at 9 a and a and b. $36 million. Initial five jury number one. Number two, award of attorney's fees and costs. Instructions check yes or no. If you check yes, it's judgment of attorney in the amount due to the plaintiff's for reasonable attorney's fees and costs. And award of the plaintiff's that amount at a later date. If you check no, it's judgment of award of $1 to plaintiff's for their attorney's fees and costs. The jury find that the standard charge for the assessment of attorney's fees and costs have been met. Yes, it's checked reasonable attorney's fees and costs to be awarded by the judge at a later date. Initial five jury number one. The last page is the four persons or number one signature in the same of 10 12 to 2022. Also, the jury. The verdict may be accepted in recorded. Ladies and gentlemen, jury, please listen to your verdict as it has been accepted and recorded. For over a month in this courthouse, this jury bore witness to Alex Jones 10 year attack on the family standing behind me. An attack that made him very rich. An attack that exploited the fears and resentments of his audience. An attack that targeted these families with the lie that they were frauds, that they faked the deaths of their loved ones, including their six and seven year old children, who Alex Jones claimed never existed at all. And all for Alex Jones is personal profit. And so after years, years of fear, threats, harassment, after realizing that Alex Jones is cruelty and greed, new no bounds, they decided to take a stand. Take a stand for themselves. Take a stand to affirm that the lives of their loved ones, their children were real, beautiful, meaningful, not to be used as cheap props to be torn apart by Alex Jones for profit. So they sought refuge and justice from this jury. And in doing so, their courage has inspired us, and they've done a great service for this country. The jury's verdict is a testament to that courage. And a resounding affirmation that people of good will dedicated to the truth, mindful of their responsibilities to their fellow citizens can come together to protect the innocent, to reveal lies masquerading as truth, and to set right a historic wrong. We are so very grateful to this jury. We want to thank them for their service, for their dedication, for their time, for their commitment, for their compassion. We want to thank all of the court staff and personnel, the marshals, the court clerks, courtroom secretaries. I especially want to thank these families, the trust that they've shown in us, allowing us to carry forward for them, the memories of their loved ones, and the people we lost at Sandy Hook. I want to thank our team at Coscoff. I want to thank my partner, Josh Coscoff, who presented the evidence with me. I want to thank all the lawyers who participated in this case, Matt Blument, Paul Sarah Steinfeld, Colin Entiah, Doug Morbito, Jess Hartman, Lorraine Thompson. I want to thank our staff, especially Fatika Sashabri and Aaron Susco, who worked tirelessly into the bone in this case. And I especially want to thank my partner, Alan, who's been on this case with me from the very beginning. And words cannot convey what she has meant to this case, and what she has meant to me over the course of all this. And so all I can say is that we would not be here without Alan or Sterling. So thank you for your interest. I want to introduce my partner, Josh Coscoff. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here on this historic moment. It's an inflection point, I think. We have this just jury has taken back for all of us, something we've been hemorrhaging over the last decades, which is core decency and humanity. The failure to be able to hear each other or listen to each other, and the gullibility of believing that people are bad people or good people, the maligning of people, the maligning of these families. This is an incredibly restorative moment, I think. The jury's verdict is a verdict for common decency and humanity. And it is a message to those that would be willing to counts, to use tragedy for their own distorted purposes, to divide us all. We're better than that. And it doesn't pay. In the end, it won't pay for you. It won't pay for you financially. It won't pay for you morally. And it won't pay for you spiritually. And I'd like to turn this over to the real heroes here, which are the families that we've had the privilege to represent these going on, in my case, almost 10 years. Those are the real heroes here, and those are the voices that Alex Jones tried to malign and trounce and disparage. And those are the ones that speak most proudly today. So I'd like to turn it over to my friend Robbie Parker. I couldn't be more proud to stand here and with all of these people. And I really miss my wife and daughters right now. They can't be here with me. Our lawyers helped give me the strength to finally find my voice and to fight and to stand up to what had been happening to me for so long. And for house, I let my voice be taken away from me and my power be taken away from me. At the expense of my daughter, and at the expense of my family. So I have to thank them for helping me get the strength and the families that I've been associated with for 10 years through this tragedy are the most beautiful people you'll ever encounter in their children and their moms and their wives are the most beautiful people you could ever get to know. All I can really say is that I'm just proud that what we are able to accomplish is just to simply tell the truth. And it shouldn't be this hard and it shouldn't be this scary. I shouldn't have to worry about what my daughters are going to go through when I tell them that it's best that they just tell the truth. Because that's all we did. Every day in that courtroom, we got up on the stand and we told the truth. Everybody that took the stand told the truth except for one. The one who proclaims that that's what he does. But while the truth is being said in the courtroom, he was standing right here lying. I can't express enough gratitude for their jury, not just because of their verdict, but for what they had to endure, what they had to listen to, for what they did in their lives. And that they just simply were able to take the truth that they heard and do an impossible job and render a verdict with it. No matter what it was, it didn't matter because what we got out of it meant more than anything that anybody could ever give us. And honestly, for anybody that still chooses to listen to that man, just ask yourself, what has he ever given you? And compare that to whatever it is that he's taken from you. Do you still have your family members with you? And they still believe in you and trust you? What have you ever gotten from him? And what has he taken from you, too? Thank you for everything. Thank you. My name is Erica, and I am the daughter of John Laffey Hatchrun, who is the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School. And as I was upstairs testifying about the rape threats that were sent to me, Alex Jones was standing right here holding a press conference. After almost a decade of threats and messages from conspiracy theorists led by Jones, this is a moment years in the making. And in this big moment, like an ever big moment, since the shooting, I wish I could just call my mom and tell her about it. I would tell her about the horror of watching Alex Jones hold court with the press outside right here about the disappointment of so many news outlets who've known us since 1214 run his words unfiltered. The heartbreak of reliving the shooting as so many families shared stories of their slain loved ones. But I would also like to tell her about the bright spots. New station, like NBC Connecticut, refused to give a dangerous conspiracy theorist a platform throughout this trial, and I thank them. The jury bravely bore witness to our pain, sitting through hours and a half hours of testimony that will never leave their minds. And then there were people who were by my side throughout this trial and Chris, Alan or Josh Matt and team. You guys were my bad posts and my shining lights throughout all of this. And I cannot thank you enough for your compassion, extreme expertise and your friendship. I wish I could tell my mom about all of this. I wish I could tell her about so many things that have happened since she was murdered. Mostly that I'll never stop missing her. I wish that after today I could just be a daughter grieving my mother and stop worrying about conspiracy theorists sending me threats or worst. But I know that this is not the end of Alex Jones in my life. I know that his hate, his hate lies and conspiracy theories will follow both me and my family through the rest of our days. But I'm also hopeful for what happened here today that it may save other family families from high profile tragedies from the cycle of abuse and retraumatization that we have all been put through as we simply try to survive the hardest days, weeks and years of our lives. I'm incredibly proud and thankful for the message that was sent here today. The truth matters. In those who profit off of other people's pain and trauma will pay for what they have done. There will be more Alex Jones is in this world. But what they learned here today is that they absolutely will be held accountable. Hi, I'm Nicole Hockley and I actually wasn't going to speak today. I think I'm still in a little bit of shock. And in addition to the thanks that Robbie and Erica already shared, there is an additional bright spot just reconnecting with so many of these families again has been something that I'm going to miss tomorrow. I'm not going to miss not coming back to this courtroom, but I'm going to miss not being able to sit and talk with them. And I have always believed in the goodness of people. And when I first started engaging with followers of Alex Jones back in January 2013, I was looking for the good. And I didn't find it. And I gave up until I decided to fight. And today with this jury who I have so much gratitude for for listening so attentively for not just listening for hearing us. I'm so grateful to them. And this is sending the right message that people are good and that good does prevail. And thank you for restoring my faith in people about that. Good afternoon. My name is Bill Sherlock. My wife and dog Hock sprung with the first two people to approach the shooter that morning and paid for it with their lives as true first responders that had nothing that they're nothing at their side. They want to protect the kids and the staff. And I've come to know these people over almost 10 years. These beautiful people, they're good friends under the worst most horrendous situation that you can imagine. And to belittle that horrific event is criminal in and of itself. We came in here with a default verdict. So we knew there would be some sort of statement coming out of the coming out of this trial. Didn't know what it was going to be, but there would be a statement. And the jury today and our thanks to them came through and responded as we hope they would for our entire community. And from a personal standpoint, what it does to me is it shows that the Internet is not the wild wild west. And that your actions have consequences. And for someone to scan in front of a camera, probably right now is we're speaking to spew the lies to enrich themselves. Well, now there's a cost benefit analysis that'll have to be done because we've sent a response. We put a dose of civility into the society that we really need at this point in time. And going forward because unfortunately there will be other horrific events like this. People like Alex Jones will have to rethink what they say, how they say it, how long they say it. And for those who want to be Alex Jones, want to be this trial, this verdict said a pretty high hurdle in terms of what the cost would be to them to enter into that realm of lies and deceit. Again, my thanks to the to cascow law firm, this is just an unbelievable team. They become they become like family to us. And my entire family thanks them and thanks the media coverage. Thank you very much. The families objective in all of this in all of it was just to hold Alex Jones accountable and it made clear to the world the harm and wreckage that lies like the ones he pushed can have. Not just on them, but on families like them on the next families that have to deal with the unspeakable tragedy of a mass shooting. And so what we think is that this jury's verdict reflects their considered view of just how devastating his conduct was and he has to bear the consequences of that. You know, we said in our closing argument that the spread of this lie which reached upwards of a billion people we know. That was his doing that's what he wanted and so the jury's verdict should reflect that type of damage and that's what we think happened and so in that sense we believe it is historic and we are going to enforce this verdict. I want to make that very clear that we are going to go to whatever forum we have to whether it's in Texas or in bankruptcy court or right here we are going to enforce this verdict as long as it takes because that's what justice requires. We've watched you and I'm hoping you can see that perfectly. I believe in the right of the world members members for hold. I mean, the emotion you guys don't convince the court is to talk about that moment. How you spend your own relationship with other financials? What's going on in that moment for really you guys, what do you think the family should be doing? The families are the most important thing. That's how you get through this and if besides this amazing law firm, it's the families that have helped me come up every day and when every name was called, it was a moment to send each and every person who has sought to be a family. Every person who has suffered the most horrible thing ever, the most love we can. Because that's what it is for. And that's what it is for these families. We love each and every person and we want each and every person to be recognized for the harm that's been done. Well, one of the things that Alex Jones tried to do throughout this case was to hide his assets, to conceal from the court, from the jury, the true extent of his profits here. But we're going to find out, you know, one of the things that the bankruptcy court allows and the action we brought in Texas to go after his fraudulent transfer of assets is a lot of scrutiny on what assets he has, what he's transferred and what is available. And so whatever is available, you can rest assured that we as representatives of these families and the other families who have brought cases will be coordinating to make sure that those assets are available for recovery to the victims of his offenses. I just want to share with you guys a thing. I mean, is anybody surprised at that? I mean, how many millions did Alex Jones make off a trial about Alex Jones making millions off of the backs of these devastated families? How many millions did he make off of this process? How many more millions? How many, how much beat juice is he selling right now? How much bogus iodine supplements or whatever else he sells at great markup to his gullible listeners? It doesn't surprise me at all. And if this verdict shuts down Alex Jones, good. Is Alex Jones have a legitimate business going? Since 9-11 he's been walking in the shadow of death to try to profit from the backs of people who have just been devastated and uprooted. That is not a business model that should be sustainable in the United States of America. Guys, last question. It's been a long day. What's so folks, what's the next step is of a beautiful damage to the people? Right, so the next step of this proceeding is for Judge Bellis to consider punitive damages under Connecticut's Unfair Trade Practices Act. That's a decision for her to make. Those damages, if she awards them, will be on top of the jury's verdict here and will be making a presentation of her over the course of the next month. Once that is concluded, whether there's an appeal or not, we will be active down in Texas in an action we brought to track any fraudulent transfers of assets he's made and in bankruptcy court where we are now very significant creditors of Alex Jones and free speech assistance, his business. So this is going to continue on. But we will be at it as long as it takes. And if you're out there right now and you're one of Alex Jones's audience members and you're considering giving him money, I just want you to know that based on the jury's verdict today, it's not a very good bet. And to go back to what Robbie Parker said, all Alex Jones does is take from you, exploit you, lie to you, feed your fears and your anxieties and your mistrust. And the only person that benefits and that equation is him. Well, that stops that stopping today, thanks to the courage of these families. Thank you very much. Thanks, Senator. But we will be at it as long as it takes. And if you're out there right now and you're one of Alex Jones's audience members and you're considering giving him money, I just want you to know that based on the jury's verdict today, it's not a very good bet. And to go back to what Robbie Parker said, all Alex Jones does is take from you, exploit you, lie to you, feed your fears and your anxieties and your mistrust. And the only person that benefits and that equation is him. Well, that stops that stopping today. Well, that stops that stopping today. And to go back to what Robbie Parker said, all Alex Jones does is take from you, you're going to be at it as long as it takes.