A Texas appeals court has dramatically reduced the amount conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, cutting a nearly $50 million judgment to about $5.6 million. The ruling, issued unanimously by the Texas Third Court of Appeals on Friday, upheld $4.1 million in compensatory damages awarded to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 first graders and six educators murdered at the Connecticut school in 2012. But the court reduced the $45.2 million in punitive damages awarded by a jury to $1.5 million, citing limits under Texas law.

The court found that the parents did not provide enough evidence of harassment to pass the state's $750,000 cap on damages. Jones spent years falsely claiming the Sandy Hook massacre was staged and that the grieving families were actors participating in a government plot to restrict gun rights. The parents testified that Jones's lies resulted in years of harassment and threats from his followers, with victims' relatives describing death and rape threats, in-person harassment, and abusive comments on social media. Jones argued there was no proof linking him to the others' actions, but he did concede under oath that the shooting did happen.

The Texas case is only one part of the massive financial judgments against Jones stemming from his Sandy Hook lies. The ruling does not affect a separate $1.25 billion judgment against Jones in Connecticut, where he was also found liable for defaming and causing emotional distress to relatives of the victims. Jones has already tried to appeal the Connecticut judgment to the U.S. Supreme Court but was denied last year.

Sandy Hook families have yet to collect any money from Jones, who has waged lengthy appeals in state and bankruptcy courts as his company faces liquidation. He remains on air after moving onto new websites and streaming platforms. Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy, and he gave up the Infowars brand in April.

Friday's ruling did not throw out the trial court's finding of defamation against Jones. Still, he called it "a gigantic victory for the First Amendment," and said he will continue to appeal the case to the state Supreme Court to get the remaining damages thrown out. "I got lawyers who are good constitutional lawyers and they are not backing down," Jones said.

Mark Bankston, an attorney for Heslin and Lewis in Texas, downplayed the decision. "The families care not at all about this irrelevant ruling which affects only two of the 19 claims they all share. Jones still faces over a billion dollars of liability, so this changes absolutely nothing. All it does is highlight the absurdity of Texas law," Bankston said.

The Connecticut case produced a judgment against Jones of more than $1.4 billion in damages, which was reduced by about $150 million during appeals. A Connecticut jury separately ordered Jones to pay nearly $1 billion to families of eight victims and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting. A judge later added hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive damages, bringing that judgment to roughly $1.4 billion.

Jones has fought the judgments for years through appeals and bankruptcy proceedings while continuing to operate Infowars. For decades, he used the platform to push conspiracy theories about the United Nations, the federal government, gun control and more. The financial verdicts against Jones and his company in recent years have forced him into bankruptcy, led to some of his personal property being put up for auction and led to him leaving his Infowars platform.

The Onion's proposed licensing deal to take over Infowars was put on hold, and a federal judge overturned the auction results of Infowars' parent company assets. The Onion had replaced the 'o' in Infowars with an onion and sold products under that logo with some proceeds going to Sandy Hook families.

Jones bought the Infowars domain name for $9 after being fired from an Austin radio station in the mid-1990s. By 2024, Infowars had four studios in Austin and a warehouse. Jesse Lewis would have turned 20 in June.