The father of a Jewish boy killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 was awarded $450,000 in a defamation lawsuit against the editor of a book that claimed that the massacre never happened.
The judgement by a jury in Wisconsin comes four months after a judge ruled that Leonard Pozner, whose 6-year-old son Noah was the youngest of the 26 people killed at the school, was defamed by James Fetzer and Mike Palecek, editors of a book claiming that the government staged the killing to advance gun-control measures.
According to the book, Pozner faked his son’s death certificate to advance the conspiracy.
Fetzer called the judgment “absurd” and said he plans to appeal, while Palacek has already settled with Pozner for an undisclosed amount.
According to JTA, Pozner is a party to multiple lawsuits against those claiming the shooting was a hoax including Alex Jones, founder of the far-right conspiracy website Infowars, who has also alluded to claims that parents of the Sandy Hook victims were actors and part of a plot to take away firearms.
Jones last week lost his appeal in connection to a lawsuit filed by a mother who lost a child in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook. The mother was seeking damages for the intentional infliction of emotional distress caused by Jones, Infowars and their inaccurate reporting on the mass shooting.
