Texas Court Slashes $50M Judgment Against Alex Jones Over Sandy Hook Shooting Hoax Claims

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Texas Court Slashes $50M Judgment Against Alex Jones Over Sandy Hook Shooting Hoax Claims
Photo: PBS NewsHour
politics· A press review of 6 outlets

  1. Court slashes $50M judgment against Alex Jones over falsely calling Sandy Hook shooting a hoax The ruling does not affect a $1.4 billion judgment against Jones in Connecticut, but is a significant legal victory for for him after he and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages for claiming the mass shooting didn't happen.

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    The Guardian US

    A Texas appeals court has slashed the $50m judgment to $1.5m against Alex Jones, founder of the rightwing platform Infowars, over falsely calling the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut a hoax.

    HuffPost

    The ruling does not affect a $1.4 billion judgement against Jones in Connecticut, but is a significant legal victory for Jones after he and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages for claiming the mass shooting didn’t happen.

    Associated Press

    The ruling does not affect a $1.4 billion judgement against Jones in Connecticut, but is a significant legal victory for Jones after he and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages for claiming the mass shooting didn’t happen.

    Washington Examiner

    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.

  2. The unanimous opinion of by the Texas Third Court of Appeals found that Sandy Hook parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis did not show evidence that harassment enflamed by Jones’ hoax claims rose to a level that would allow them to exceed the state’s $750,000 cap on damages.

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    Associated Press

    The unanimous opinion of by the Texas Third Court of Appeals found that Sandy Hook parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis did not show evidence that harassment enflamed 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.

    The Guardian US

    The unanimous opinion issued by the Texas third court of appeals found that Sandy Hook parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis did not show sufficient evidence that harassment enflamed by Jones’s hoax claims rose to a level that would allow them to exceed the state’s $750,000 cap on damages. More details soon …

    Washington Examiner

    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.

  3. 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.

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    Associated Press

    Heslin and Lewis’s 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was among 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut. The lawsuit and 2022 verdict against Jones marked the first time Jones was held financially liable for peddling lies about the massacre, claiming it was faked by the government to tighten gun laws.

From the margins

3 details only one outlet reported

Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.

  1. 01 Washington Examiner

    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.

  2. 02 Associated Press

    Jones’ trial attorney Andino Reynal had said immediately after the verdict that Jones would appeal the damages amount, and predicted it would be reduced to $1.5 million.

  3. 03 The Daily Wire

    A federal jury on Thursday ordered The New York Times to pay a former University of Alabama men’s basketball player $9.25 million in damages for falsely reporting that he was at the scene of a murder in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Assembled from 3 corroborated claims drawn from 6 independent outlets. Every passage above is taken verbatim — Dorothy doesn't paraphrase or summarize.

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Sources (6)

  • huffpost
  • pbs
  • dailywire
  • ap
  • guardian
  • washexaminer

Original Articles (6)

Center Court slashes $50M judgment against Alex Jones over falsely calling Sandy Hook shooting a hoax — PBS NewsHour
Lean Right Texas judge wipes $50 million judgment against Alex Jones in Sandy Hook case — Washington Examiner
Lean Left Texas slashes $50m judgment against Alex Jones over false claim Sandy Hook shooting was hoax — The Guardian US
Center Court slashes $50M judgment against Infowars' Alex Jones over falsely calling school shooting a hoax - AP News — Associated Press
Left Court Slashes $50M Judgment Against Alex Jones Over False Sandy Hook Claims — HuffPost
Right NYT Ordered To Pay Millions To College Athlete In Defamation Judgement — The Daily Wire