Texas Court Reduces $50 Million Judgment Against Alex Jones for Staging Sandy Hook Shooter
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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.
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PBS NewsHourCourt 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.
The Guardian USA 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.
The HillAppeals court slashes Alex Jones Sandy Hook judgment from $50M to $1.5M A Texas court on Friday cut the amount Infowars founder Alex Jones was ordered to pay to a family affected by the Sandy Hook shooting after they were subject to harassment when he claimed the attack was a hoax. The Third Court of Appeals ruled unanimously to reduce the damages awarded to Neil Heslin and…
USA TodayNEW YORK – Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones won an appeal in one family's defamation lawsuit over his false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting was a hoax, reducing the judgment against him from $50 million to about $5.5 million.
Washington TimesThe 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.
HuffPostThe 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 PressThe Connecticut case produced a judgment against Jones of more than $1.4 billion in damages, which was reduced by about $150 million during appeals. In Texas, Jones was hit with nearly $50 million in damages.
New York TimesCourt Slashes Award Alex Jones Was Ordered to Pay Sandy Hook Parents An appeals court reduced the award to the parents of one victim to $6 million from $49 million, citing a Texas damages cap. The conspiracy theorist owes over $1 billion in other cases.
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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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Washington TimesHeslin 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.
USA TodayJones claimed for years that the 2012 killing of 20 students and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was staged with actors as part of a government plot to seize Americans’ guns. He has since acknowledged that the shooting occurred.
Associated PressSeveral relatives of the 20 first graders and six educators killed at Sandy Hook sued Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, in Connecticut and Texas for defamation and inflicting emotional distress for saying the shooting was staged by “crisis actors” to win more gun control.
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Texas law typically caps punitive damages, which made up $45.2 million of the verdict, at $750,000 per plaintiff. A three-judge panel of the Texas Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the trial court erred by exceeding the cap, and it ordered the punitive damages reduced to $1.5 million.
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Associated PressOn Friday, a state appeals court threw out most of the Texas award because it vastly exceeded the state’s legal cap on punitive damages. The ruling reduced that portion from more than $40 million to $1.5 million, leaving about $6 million intact.
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Jones and his company have filed for bankruptcy, and those legal proceedings continue. The satirical website The Onion also moved to take over Jones’ Infowars platforms and turn his bullhorn of conspiracy theories into parody sites.
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Associated PressThe satirical website The Onion has moved to take over Jones’ Infowars platforms and turn his bullhorn of conspiracy theories into parody sites.
USA TodayThe parody news site the Onion has sought to acquire some of Jones' intellectual property in bankruptcy, and it began posting parody Infowars-branded videos in July after an earlier failed attempt to acquire the Infowars name in a disputed bankruptcy sale. (Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Blake Brittain and Lisa Shumaker)
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Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.
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01 Associated Press For the bombastic Infowars founder, the ruling that saves him more than $40 million was still a legal victory amid multiple punishing financial judgments that forced him and his company, Free Speech Systems, to file for bankruptcy.
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02 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.
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03 USA Today Jones, who filed for bankruptcy after being sued by parents of children slain in the shooting, must still pay $1.4 billion in related judgments.
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04 Washington Times 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.
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