Alex Jones ordered to pay $45.2m in punitive damages to Sandy Hook family

Combined amount of $49.3m is still below the $150m Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis sought after his Sandy Hook shooting lies

After already ordering him to pay $4.1m to the parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, the jury hearing the defamation case against far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over his falsehoods about the massacre told him to surrender another $45.2m to the grieving family who sued him.

The combined amount of $49.3m is hefty but still below the $150m Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis - the mother and father of slain six-year-old Jesse Lewis - had demanded over Jones's repeated lies that the Sandy Hook elementary school murders in Newtown, Connecticut, were an elaborate ruse carried out by crisis actors" hellbent on forcing gun control reform.