Texas appeals court reduces Alex Jones' Sandy Hook judgment to $1.5 million

A Texas third court of appeals unanimously reduced the $50 million damages award against Alex Jones, founder of Infowars, to $1.5 million in a case involving his false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. The decision does not affect a separate $1.4 billion judgment issued by a Connecticut court.

The panel found that the plaintiffs, parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, had not presented sufficient evidence that the harassment stemming from Jones's statements rose to a level that would exceed Texas's $750,000 cap on damages. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review an earlier appeal of the larger award.

Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, have been engaged in ongoing bankruptcy proceedings after acknowledging the need to satisfy the judgments. Earlier this year, a proposal was announced for the satirical website The Onion, through its parent company Global Tetrahedron, to lease Infowars for $81,000 a month, with proceeds intended to fund the judgments.

"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," comedian Tim Heidecker, Infowars’s creative director, said.

The Sandy Hook families, who lost a child in the 2012 attack, argued that an apology was insufficient and sought compensation for the suffering caused by the false claims. Jones acknowledged during the trial that the shooting was real and that his statements were incorrect. The case marks the first time Jones was held financially liable for disseminating falsehoods about the massacre.