A Texas appeals court has reduced a $50 million judgment against Infowars founder Alex Jones to $1.5 million. The court's decision pertains to claims that Jones falsely called the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax.
The Texas Third Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion finding that Sandy Hook parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis did not provide sufficient evidence that harassment fueled by Jones' claims met the state's $750,000 cap on damages. Heslin and Lewis are the parents of Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old who was among the 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut.
Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages for promoting the conspiracy theory that the massacre was staged by the government to justify gun control measures. The lawsuit and the subsequent 2022 verdict marked the first time Jones faced financial accountability for his false statements about the shooting.
While this ruling offers a legal reprieve for Jones in Texas, it does not impact the separate $1.4 billion judgment against him in Connecticut. Jones and his company have filed for bankruptcy, and those proceedings are ongoing.