Alex Jones has to pay $965 million in compensation to Sandy Hook shooting families

Controversial broadcaster Alex Jones will have to pay $965 million to several victims' families from the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut on December 14, 2012.

The families of eight of the victims and an FBI agent filed a lawsuit against him after he said on his InfoWars podcast, on numerous occasions, that the shooting was "a hoax designed by those who advocate gun control." Now, a Connecticut court is forcing Jones to pay nearly $1 billion in damages to the whistleblowers.

After receiving the allegations, the controversial broadcaster began to take back his statements and claimed that the Sandy Hook massacre was "real." In August, he was forced to compensate Jesse Lewis' parents with $50 million, one of the children who was killed on December 12, 2012. Jones still has a lawsuit pending after he was sued by Noah Pozner's parents, another of the children who died in the massacre.

Sandy Hook shooting

The tenth anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, is just two months away. Adam Lanza, 20, killed his mother the morning of December 12 in her sleep. He later went to Sandy Hook School, where he carried out the shooting using assault rifles. Lanza murdered 20 children between the ages of six and seven and six adults before killing himself.