Austin: US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay the parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre at least $US4.1 million ($5.8 million) for falsely claiming the shooting was a hoax, a Texas jury said on Thursday, Washington-time.

The verdict followed a two-week trial in Austin, Texas, where Jones’s radio show and webcast Infowars are based.

The jurors will next consider the parents’ request for as much as $US75 million in punitive damages from Jones for spreading falsehoods about the killing of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012.

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, separated parents of slain six-year-old Jesse Lewis, testified that Jones’ followers harassed them and sent them death threats for years in the false belief that the parents were lying about their son’s death.

During closing arguments on Wednesday, their attorney, Kyle Farrar, urged jurors to end what he called their nightmare and hold Jones accountable for profiting off their son’s death.

Federico Reynal, an attorney for Jones, acknowledged during his closing argument that Jones and Infowars reported “irresponsibly” on Sandy Hook but said his client was not responsible for the harassment.

Jones previously claimed that the mainstream media and gun-control activists conspired to fabricate the Sandy Hook tragedy and that the shooting was staged using crisis actors.

He later acknowledged that the shooting took place and sought to distance himself from previous falsehoods during the trial, telling jurors it was “crazy” of him to repeatedly make the claim that the shooting was a hoax.