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Elementary School shooting victims and a first responder for falsely claiming that the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre in Newtown was staged.
The six-member panel took three days to return its unanimous verdict at Connecticut Superior Court in Waterbury, which is about 20 miles from the school.
Jones, who testified in person at the trial late last month, was not present in court when the verdict was read.
The monthlong trial featured often-emotional and tearful testimony from victims’ relatives who said they have been tormented and threatened by people who believed the lies spread by Jones and his media company Free Speech Systems, which operates the Infowars website.
Mark and Jackie Barden, whose 7-year-old son Daniel was killed at Sandy Hook, testified that people had urinated on their son’s grave and threatened to dig it up to prove he was still alive.
Robbie Parker, whose 6-year-old daughter Emilie was killed at the school, testified about the repeated harassment he received after Infowars showed a video of him smiling just before a news conference the day after the shooting — proof, Jones claimed, that Parker and others were “crisis actors.”
“It would come in these waves,” Parker said of the harassment. “It was almost like I knew when Alex Jones said something, because we would get a huge wave of stuff.”
Jones appeared on the witness stand just once when he was called to testify by the plaintiffs’ attorneys. In his testimony, Jones said he was “done saying I’m sorry” for his role in spreading lies about the massacre.
He declined to present a defense, and his lawyers rested without putting on evidence or witnesses.
Outside of the courthouse, however, Jones called the legal proceedings a “show trial” and “kangaroo court” aimed at putting him out of business.
Jones lost four defamation lawsuits filed by Sandy Hook families late last year. The trial in Connecticut was the second of three trials for juries to decide on how much money Jones must pay in damages.