New Mexico has asked a state judge to order Meta to pay $35 billion to $40 billion in civil penalties. The request was made at a hearing on October 1.

A Santa Fe jury found on September 25 that Meta committed more than 43 million violations of the state’s consumer-protection law. The case grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which data from as many as 87 million Facebook users was harvested without consent.

Jurors reviewed 29 Meta statements and found 26 misleading. New Mexico law allows up to $5,000 for each wilful violation. Under the jury’s math, the theoretical maximum reaches $219 billion.

The lawsuit, filed in 2021, accused Meta of lying about who could access user data and how it handled hate speech and misinformation.

Meta has asked the judge to cap the penalty at $3.45 billion, arguing the state did not prove any residents were actually misled. Judge Francis Mathew postponed the penalty decision pending further filings.