Robbie Parker, who lost his 6-year-old daughter, Emilie, said outside the Connecticut court that he was proud that “what we were able to accomplish was just to simply tell the truth”.

“And it shouldn’t be this hard, and it shouldn’t be this scary,” said Parker, who became an early target of conspiracy theorists after he spoke at a news conference the day after the shooting. The jury awarded him the most of any plaintiff: US$120 million.

Jones was not at court but reacted on his Infowars show.

As courtroom video showed the plaintiffs’ names being read out along with the jury awards to each, Jones said that he himself had never mentioned their names.

“All made up. Hilarious,” he said. “So this is what a show trial looks like. I mean, this is the left completely out of control.”

US jury orders Alex Jones to pay another US$45 million for Sandy Hook lies

Jones’ lawyer, Norm Pattis, said the verdict was higher than he expected. He plans to appeal.

The jury awarded various sums to the victims’ relatives, who testified that they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’ show. Strangers showed up at their homes to record them. People hurled abusive comments on social media.

Mark Barden testified that conspiracy theorists urinated on the grave of his 7-year-old son, Daniel, and threatened to dig up the coffin; Barden and his wife were together awarded about US$86 million.

Now-retired FBI Agent William Aldenberg, awarded US$90 million, described the horror he saw at the school as he responded alongside other law enforcement, and his outrage at seeing online claims that he was an actor pretending to be the father of a victim.

Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, testified that people mailed rape threats to her house.

“I wish that after today, I can just be a daughter grieving my mother and stop worrying about the conspiracy theorists,” Lafferty said outside court. But she predicted that Jones’ “hate, lies and conspiracy theories will follow both me and my family through the rest of our days”.

To plaintiff William Sherlach, the verdict “shows that the internet is not the wild, wild West, and that your actions have consequences”.

He had testified about seeing online posts that falsely posited that the shooting was a hoax, that his slain wife, school psychologist Mary Sherlach, never existed; that he was part of a financial cabal and somehow involved with the school shooter’s father; and more. He told jurors the shooting deniers’ vitriol made him worry for his family’s safety.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones declares bankruptcy for Infowars site

“Going forward – because, unfortunately, there will be other horrific events like this – people like Alex Jones will have to rethink what they say,” Sherlach said.

Testifying during the trial, Jones acknowledged he had been wrong about Sandy Hook. The shooting was real, he said. But both in the courtroom and on his show, he was defiant.

He called the proceedings a “kangaroo court”, mocked the judge, called the plaintiffs’ lawyer an ambulance chaser and labelled the case an affront to free speech rights. He claimed it was a conspiracy by Democrats and the media to silence him and put him out of business.

“I’ve already said ‘I’m sorry’ hundreds of times, and I’m done saying I’m sorry,” he said during his testimony.

Twenty children and six adults died in the shooting on December 14, 2012. The trial was held at a courthouse in Waterbury, about 32km (20 miles) from Newtown, where the attack took place.

The lawsuit accused Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, of using the mass killing to build his audience and make millions of dollars. Experts testified that Jones’ audience swelled, as did his revenue from product sales, when he made Sandy Hook a topic on the show.

In both the Texas lawsuit and the one in Connecticut, judges found the company liable for damages by default after Jones failed to cooperate with court rules on sharing evidence, including failing to turn over records that might have showed whether Infowars had profited from knowingly spreading misinformation about mass killings.

Because he was already found liable, Jones was barred from mentioning free speech rights and other topics during his testimony.

Sandy Hook families settle for US$73 million with gun maker Remington

Jones now faces a third trial, in Texas around the end of the year, in a lawsuit filed by the parents of another child killed in the shooting.

It is unclear how much of the verdicts Jones can afford to pay. During the trial in Texas, he testified he could not afford any judgment over US$2 million. Free Speech Systems has filed for bankruptcy protection. But an economist testified in the Texas proceeding that Jones and his company were worth as much as US$270 million.

A lawyer for the families in the Connecticut case, Josh Koskoff, said that “if this verdict shuts down Alex Jones, good”.

“He’s been walking in the shadow of death to try to profit on the backs of people who have just been devastated,” Koskoff said. “That is not a business model that should be sustainable in the United States.”