By JIM VERTUNO, Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas court on Friday slashed a $50 million judgment to $1.5 million against Infowars founder Alex Jones after he falsely claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting was a hoax.
The ruling does not affect a $1.25 billion judgment against Jones in Connecticut, but is a legal victory for him after he and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages for claiming the mass shooting didn’t happen.
Despite the multiple financial judgments against him in Connecticut and Texas, Jones has yet to make any payments as he appeals the amounts and the attempt to liquidate his company.
The unanimous opinion by the Texas Third Court of Appeals found that Sandy Hook parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis did not show evidence that harassment inflamed by Jones’ hoax claims rose to a level that would allow them to exceed the state’s $750,000 cap on damages for each plaintiff.
Heslin and Lewis’s 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was among 20 children and six educators killed in the attack in Newtown, Connecticut. The lawsuit and the 2022 verdict against Jones marked the first time he was held financially liable for peddling lies about the massacre, claiming it was faked by the government to tighten gun laws.
Jones, who portrayed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights, conceded during the trial that the attack was “100% real” and that he was wrong to have lied about it.
However, on his streaming...
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