Texas judge wipes $50 million judgement against Alex Jones
A Texas appeals court reduced the $50 million defamation judgment against Alex Jones for claiming the Sandy hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax to $1.5 million. The original verdict was from a 2022 trial where Jones, a right-wing conspiracy theorist, was found liable for defamation and emotional distress after falsely asserting the massacre was staged, resulting in damages awarded to the parents of a victim. The appeals court ruled that the parents failed to prove their harassment claims exceeded Texas’s statutory damages cap,and criticized the trial court for allowing a larger judgment. Jones argued his free speech rights were violated, and acknowledged he was wrong to lie, though he maintained the lawsuit targeted his First Amendment rights. The court’s decision limits the damages but does not impact a separate $1.4 billion Connecticut judgment against Jones regarding his Sandy Hook claims. Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, have filed for bankruptcy, and he continues facing legal and financial consequences over his false allegations about the tragedy.
A Texas appeals court has reduced a $50 million judgment against Alex Jones for falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a staged hoax to $1.5 million.
The ruling stems from a 2022 trial in which Jones, a Texas-based right-wing political commentator and conspiracy theorist, was found liable by default for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress after repeatedly claiming the massacre was fabricated. A trial court ordered Jones to pay $50 million in damages to the parents of Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old boy killed in the shooting.
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The 3rd Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Lewis’s parents, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, failed to provide sufficient evidence that harassment stemming from Jones’s claims reached a level allowing them to exceed Texas’s $750,000 statutory cap on damages.
The appeals court said the trial court “abused its discretion” by allowing the judgment to exceed the statutory limit. Jones’s trial attorney, Andino Reynal, had previously said he would appeal the damages award and shortly after the trial predicted it could be reduced to roughly $1.5 million.
Jones has argued that the lawsuit was an attack on his right to free speech under the First Amendment. During the trial, he admitted that the attack was real and that he was wrong to lie about it. Heslin and Lewis maintained that an apology was not enough, and called on Jones to pay for the suffering he caused them and other parents involved in the tragedy.
The ruling is a victory for Jones and his media company, Free Speech Systems, which operates the now-inactive Infowars. However, it does not affect a separate $1.4 billion judgment against Jones in Connecticut stemming from his Sandy Hook claims.
Heslin and Lewis’s son was among 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones repeatedly told his millions of followers that the massacre was staged by “crisis actors” as part of a conspiracy to enact stricter gun-control laws.
Jones and Free Speech Systems have filed for bankruptcy, and those proceedings remain ongoing.
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