A judge has ruled that Alex Jones, the host of the conspiracy radio show and website InfoWars, must pay $100,000 in legal fees accrued by the father of a Sandy Hook victim as part of a defamation lawsuit.
According to The New York Times, Judge Scott Jenkins of Travis County District Court ruled in two separate orders on Dec. 20 that Jones and his lawyer disregarded a court order to produce witnesses and other evidence to Neil Heslin and his lawyers. He ordered that Jones pay legal fees of $65,825 and $34,323 to Heslin and his team.
The Times reports that Jenkins noted that Jones and his team's failure to produce witnesses "should be treated as contempt of court."
The Daily Beast notes that Jones and his team have been forced to pay more than $120,000 in Heslin's legal fees even though the trial has not yet begun.
Heslin's 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was killed in the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut on Dec. 14, 2012. Since the shooting, Jones has claimed on InfoWars that the shootings never happened and were staged by the government, and the victims in the case were portrayed by actors.
In April 2018, Heslin sued Jones and InfoWars for defamation. Later that year, six other families filed a second defamation lawsuit against Jones and InfoWars.
