Roger Stone makes donation plea for Alex Jones after verdict says he must pay $49m for Sandy Hook 'hoax' claims

• Roger Stone called on InfoWars viewers to contribute to Alex Jones, a video shows.
• Stone said Jones needs "support" after he was ordered to pay $49.3m in damages this week.

Roger Stone, a political advisor to former President Donald Trump, made a plea for donations for his friend Alex Jones after the InfoWars founder was hit with a multimillion-dollar verdict in a defamation lawsuit this week, Newsweek reported.

In a video shared on Twitter, Stone can be heard complimenting Jones — a conspiracy theorist who repeatedly made false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a "hoax" — and asking InfoWars viewers to make contributions.

"Alex Jones is a good and decent man," said Stone. "He's a god-fearing Christian, he's done more for this movement than perhaps anyone you could possibly name, and, right now, he needs our support."

Jones must pay $45.2 million in punitive damages to two parents whose son was killed in the massacre, which left 20 children aged six and seven dead, and $4.1 million in compensatory damages, a Texas jury found this week. He has been ordered to pay $49.3m total in damages.

"There's a place at the InfoWars store where you can go just to make a contribution," Stone said in the video. "If you're not in the market for a book, or one of his great products, there's a link you can just send a contribution."

Jones's main company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy on Friday, midway through his trial. During his trial, he said anything more than a $2 million penalty for defaming Sandy Hook families would "sink" Infowars.

Despite warning that his company would be financially ruined, Jones previously testified that Infowars' revenue for the most recent fiscal year was $70 million. Texts from his phone, which were accidentally shared by his attorney, revealed Infowars made up to $800,000 per day in 2018.

Included in the cellphone leak was "intimate messages" between Jones and Stone, said the lawyer of Sandy Hook parents, per Insider's report. The contents of the messages are of interest to the House committee investigating the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, Insider reported.