A Texas appeals court on Friday lowered a $50 million judgment to $1.5 million against Infowars founder and former host Alex Jones over falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. The Texas Third Court of Appeals found that two of the victim’s parents, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, didn’t provide enough […]
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A Texas appeals court on Friday lowered a $50 million judgment to $1.5 million against Infowars founder and former host Alex Jones over falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax.
The Texas Third Court of Appeals found that two of the victim’s parents, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, didn’t provide enough evidence to show that the harassment following Jones’ comments was enough to allow the court to exceed the state’s $750,000 limit on damages for each parent, The Associated Press reported. Texas law limits the amount of damages parties can receive in defamation cases.
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The parents’ son, 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, was one of the 20 children and six teachers killed in the attack. The lawsuit was the first time Jones was held liable for false statements he made about the attack. He claimed the government faked the attack to enact stricter gun laws.
Jones claimed the lawsuit was an attack on his First Amendment rights but later acknowledged during the trial that the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was “100% real,” and he was wrong for saying otherwise.
Jones’ next steps
After the Texas court’s ruling, Jones went on his streaming show and said it was “a gigantic victory for the First Amendment,” the AP reported. He said he would continue to fight the case and planned to appeal it to the Texas Supreme Court to get the remaining damages tossed.
“I got lawyers who are good constitutional lawyers, and they are not backing down,” Jones said.
The attorney for Heslin and Lewis, Mark Bankston, told the AP that the ruling was “irrelevant” since Jones is still facing multiple financial judgments. Jones faces a $1.25 billion judgment in Connecticut connected to his statements on the mass shooting.
“The families care not at all about this irrelevant ruling which affects only two of the 19 claims they all share,” he told the outlet. “Jones still faces over a billion dollars of liability, so this changes absolutely nothing. All it does is highlight the absurdity of Texas law.”
Jones’ financial problems
Jones’ legal battles have caused financial trouble. In 2024, he filed for bankruptcy for himself and his company, with legal proceedings ongoing.
He has fought to keep control of his former show Infowars, which is the same outlet where he made the comments that started the legal cases. The show often pushed conspiracy theories and marketed herbal supplements to its viewers.
Infowars went off the air in late April as the satirical news site, The Onion, acquired some of the rights and branding for the show. The company had announced plans to take control of Infowars and turn it into a parody show of itself under a leasing agreement approved by a Texas court, according to The Guardian.
The proposed deal would see the Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, lease Infowars for $81,000 a month. That money would go towards Jones’ judgments. But days after the details were publicized, a Texas appeals court issued a stay, pausing the acquisition. Despite the stay, Global Tetrahedron still proceeded with the relaunch.
Comedian Tim Heidecker, who has parodied Jones in the past, has appeared under the Infowars branding and on its official channels since the show was discontinued. As the deal with The Onion was taking shape in April, Heidecker told The New York Times he was excited to take over the show.
“It would be just a beautiful joke if we could take this pretty toxic, negative, destructive force of Infowars and rebrand it as this beautiful place for our creativity,” Heidecker said.
