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A Texas decide ordered far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to suck it up and pay up after flattening his request to scale back an almost $50 million defamation verdict towards him over his lies that the 2012 Sandy Hook capturing by no means occurred.
Decide Maya Guerra Gamble dismissed Jones’ lawyer’s argument that the August verdict through which a jury awarded the mother and father of one of many victims $49.3 million in damages violated a state legislation capping sure kinds of damages.
The Austin jury had dominated in favor of plaintiffs Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son was one in every of 20 first-graders killed on the college.
The mother and father claimed the Infowar host’s lies that the capturing was a government-crafted hoax meant to extend assist for gun management led his followers to harass them for years.
Jones’ legal professionals needed a decide to slash greater than $40 million off the damages, citing the state legislation that caps non-economic punitive damages.
Nonetheless, Lewis and Heslin’s legal professionals efficiently argued that the cap doesn’t apply as a result of the legislation particularly states that the restrict just isn't included in instances involving the intentional abuse of a disabled individual. They stated the trauma the mother and father suffered over their son’s horrific demise counted as a incapacity.
“Our shoppers are happy that the jury’s verdict was upheld in totality and my remaining shoppers look ahead to closing out this vile chapter of American historical past by persevering with to carry Mr. Jones accountable,” Heslin and Lewis’ lawyer, Mark Bankston, stated following the listening to.
Jones’ lawyer stated he plans to enchantment.
The practically $50 million verdict just isn't the one damages Jones should pay to the family members of Sandy Hook victims.
In a separate trial in Connecticut, a jury ordered the conspiracy theorist and his firm, Free Speech Methods LLC, to pay practically $1 billion in damages to greater than a dozen households of victims in October.
Jones was then slammed with a further $473 million in punitive damages for his “merciless” conduct by the decide in that case earlier this month.
He'll face yet one more defamation trial introduced by Sandy Hook mother and father in Austin in March.
With Submit wires.
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