Alex Jones: Will a $965m damages demand crush his Infowars empire?

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was handed a major defeat in a Connecticut court this week. But will relatives of the Sandy Hook victims be able to collect the money - and does it mean he'll stop spreading lies?

He hasn't been deterred yet.

Alex Jones was at it again the day after being handed a $965m (£860m) judgement in court, fulminating against what he calls the "globalist" "New World Order" forces attempting to muzzle him.

"Their mission is to shut me up and take me off the air and they say I'm the lead elephant," he told his Infowars audience. "They take me out, they think they're going to take you out."

Far from shutting up, Jones has continued his broadsides against the legal system and what he calls the evil forces that oppose him.

But experts say Jones is now in deep trouble. This latest verdict comes after a similar award in Texas totalling nearly $50m (£44m).

And further action is yet to come - another defamation case later this year and a possible investigation into the role Jones and other Infowars employees played in the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

The lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, Chris Mattei, called the Connecticut decision "a verdict against Alex Jones's lies and their poisonous spread, and a verdict for truth and our common humanity."

But anyone hoping that court judgements would deter Jones and Infowars from spreading paranoia and conspiracy theories will be sorely disappointed.

Rumour and suspicion has been very lucrative for Jones and Infowars' parent company Free Speech Systems. His empire has grown from a local public-access TV show in Austin, Texas to a multimedia company hawking nutritional supplements and survivalist gear.

"We know he makes a lot of money," says Bernard Pettingill Jr, a forensic economist who testified at Jones's defamation hearing in Texas. "He just won't turn over the records."

Pettingill estimates that Jones and Free Speech Systems have combined net assets of between $135m and $270m. Jones personally took $62m out of the company last year, Pettingill says.

Despite his wealth and thriving sales business, the talk show host has repeatedly claimed he's out of money and has "only" $2m to his name.

Earlier this year, Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy. A trustee has been assigned to probe exactly how much Jones and his various companies are worth, and whether the debts the company claims it has are in fact real.

"If the trustee comes back and says 'I don't believe this debt is legitimate', then Alex Jones's argument that he doesn't have enough money to pay any amount of the judgement evaporates," says Nicholas Koffroth, a bankruptcy attorney with legal firm Fox Rothschild.

"These massive judgements give the plaintiffs a lot of power in the bankruptcy case and in their pursuit of Alex Jones individually," he says.

But any such pursuit means further litigation - and that gives Jones opportunity to stall.

He's been open about his intent to do exactly that.

The Texas judgement will be reduced because of a state law that limits punitive damages, says Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University.

A judge could similarly knock down the huge compensatory damages awarded in Connecticut, so it's unlikely that he will be forced to pay anywhere near a billion dollars to Sandy Hook families.

But the initial amounts are so great, any reduction might not matter.

"By making fun of the damages and calling the Connecticut judge a tyrant, he has not laid the groundwork for getting a reduction," Lubet says.

"It still might happen, but even if the judge cuts it in half, he still can't pay it. This is crushing for him."

Jones, who did not respond to a request for comment, still has a receptive audience - millions of listeners and viewers both in the United States and elsewhere around the world. He spent a large part of his on-air time this week drumming up donations and advertising product discounts.

His business model depends on maintaining a state of perpetual anxiety about powerful, shadowy forces. On his show, Jones riffs on news stories and breaking events, asking questions and supposedly probing for hidden meanings. At every turn he casts doubt on what he calls "official narratives".

The strategy has cultivated a loyal fan base. Pettingill, the forensic economist, points out that someone sent Jones $9m in Bitcoin the day after the Texas verdict.

And no matter his legal woes, or what happens with his Infowars brand or other companies, Jones will still have broad free speech protections under the US Constitution as long as he steers clear of defamatory broadcasts like the ones that got him into trouble over Sandy Hook.

"This is America," says Lubet. "He can talk about whatever he wants."