Alex Jones owes the Sandy Hook families he defamed $1 billion.Now Rudy Giuliani owes two Georgia election workers $148 million.The massive judgments are a message that defamation around conspiracy theories is going to be costly.
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Rudy Giuliani and Alex Jones have the freedom to spread conspiracy theories, whether they’re about the 2020 election or the Sandy Hook mass shooting.
But the two right-wing personalities — one a once-beloved mayor, the other an online commentator who sells supplements — are getting a message from US courts: defamation comes with a hefty price tag.
Juries in both Jones’ and Giuliani’s cases slapped them with whopping judgments for defaming innocent people with their conspiracy theories, holding them legally liable of sparking harassment from their supporters.
On Friday, a DC jury awarded $148 million in total to two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss.
The judgment could mean financial ruin for Giuliani, who also is facing criminal charges in Georgia after prosecutors accused him of helping Donald Trump try to overturn the results of the 2020 election he claims was rigged.
Giuliani was found liable for repeatedly pushing false claims that Freeman and Moss added “suitcases” full of fake votes to the Georgia 2020 election tally, swinging the state for Biden.
Even after Georgia election officials confirmed the claims were wrong, Giuliani still spread them.
Giuliani didn’t testify in his defense at the trial.
The two said the false allegations from Giuliani upended their lives. The pair faced death threats and at one point Trump supporters went to Freeman’s home and banged on her door.
“I was terrorized. I was scared. I was scared people were coming to kill me,” Freeman told the court. “They had my address. They had my phone number, my name.”
The families of Sandy Hook victims shared similar experiences at Jones’ Connecticut trial last October, where a jury ordered he should pay Sandy Hook families nearly $1 billion.
That came after a Texas jury ordered him to pay $50 million in damages to another Sandy Hook victim’s parents.
In the cases, the victims’ families said they faced harassment from Jones’ supporters after the right-wing personality spread baseless lies that the deadly school shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six adults was staged.
In one instance, Jones directly accused one dead child’s father of being a “crisis actor” paid to pretend their kid had been killed.
Even outside of the two judgments, conspiracy theories have proved costly.
Just before trial, Fox News reached a massive $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, which had sued the right-wing media network and alleged it defamed the company with its coverage of the 2020 election lies Trump’s team was spreading.
So are Giuliani and Jones getting the message? It doesn’t seem like it.
Outside of court, Giuliani was defiant.
“I don’t regret a damn thing,” the former New York City mayor said, adding “I know that my country had a president imposed on it by fraud. These are not conspiracy theories. These are facts.”
(They are not facts)
And Sandy Hook family lawyers have accused Alex Jones of trying to hide his wealth to avoid the judgment through bankruptcy. Jones previously swore he’d never pay Sandy Hook families, and said last December that he had just 1% of the massive judgment he owes.
The families are now offering him a deal to get at least some of the money by letting him give them just $85 million — a fraction of the massive total he owes, according to multiple reports.
Meanwhile, Jones has been enjoying a return to influence as billionaire Elon Musk reinstated his account on X.
During a live event on X with Musk, Congressman Matt Gaetz, and GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy moments after he was welcomed back to the social media platform, Jones deflected responsibility for his fans and supporters targeting Sandy Hook victims.
“I’ll say it again: I apologize that I just gave my commentary because I’m really just a guy…talk radio host,” Jones told Musk. “So I do that on the Internet. I just take calls and interview guests and I play devil’s advocate. And if that hurt people’s feelings, I apologize.”
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