Decide guidelines Alex Jones should pay full $50M in damages to Sandy Hook household

A Texas decide on Tuesday denied Infowars host Alex Jones a bid to lower the quantity of damages he’s required to pay to the household of a sufferer of the 2012 Sandy Hook taking pictures following a ruling in a defamation trial in August.

Travis County District Court docket Decide Maya Guerra Gamble dominated Jones should pay, in full, the $49.2 million to plaintiffs Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, who misplaced their son within the 2012 Sandy Hook faculty taking pictures.

The information was confirmed to The Hill by Mark Bankston, the lawyer for Lewis and Heslin, who mentioned his shoppers have been “happy with the judgement and can proceed to make sure Mr. Jones is held accountable for essentially the most appalling acts of defamation and harassment in American historical past.”

Jones had contested the $4.5 million in compensatory and $45.2 million in punitive damages awarded to the plaintiffs by a decide and jury.

Within the appeals course of, his attorneys argued that primarily based on a 1995 Texas legislation, punitive damages are capped.

“There’s no query to me that it is a uncommon occasion, I hope it stays a uncommon occasion, the place a defendant deliberately inflicted emotional harm in a fashion so uncommon that the victims had no different recourse,” Gamble mentioned, in response to a report from CNN.

An lawyer for Jones instructed Reuters they’d enchantment Gamble’s Tuesday ruling after the decide rejected his arguments.

Jones was additionally ordered to pay round $1 billion this 12 months in a separate trial in Connecticut to a number of different households of victims within the Sandy Hook taking pictures.

The Infowars host unfold conspiracy theories in regards to the taking pictures, claiming it was a hoax staged by the U.S. authorities to enact stricter gun management measures. He additionally claimed that the mother and father have been “disaster actors.”

The taking pictures at Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty in Newton, Conn., left 20 college students and 6 workers members lifeless, one of many deadliest faculty shootings in U.S. historical past.

Jones has acknowledged the bloodbath and apologized, however the Infowars host mentioned in September that he was “performed saying I’m sorry.”