Alex Jones Ordered To Pay $49 Million, But Texas Law Might Have Him Paying Much Less

ByJoseph Gibsonon August 11, 2022inArticles›Celebrity News

If you’ve been following recent developments in the world of Alex Jones of conspiracy-focused content platform Infowars , you already know that he was recently slapped with a total of $49 million in damages for spreading laws about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that occurred in 2012. The ruling in his defamation case (with more still to come) was in favor of Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of children killed at Sandy Hook, for repeatedly claiming the event was some sort of “false flag.” But unfortunately for those parents, the law in Texas where the trial occurred might complicate the question of how much Jones will actually owe.

You might recall that in Johnny Depp’s recent defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard , the amount in damages owed by Heard was reduced compared to that of the jury’s decision thanks to certain laws in Virginia about caps on punitive damages within the state. Now, a similar law applies to the Jones verdict, since Texas law caps punitive damages, which make up about $45 million of the $49 million ruling.

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Technically, in Texas, punitive damages are capped at $750,000 per plaintiff, meaning Jones would only have to pay $1.5 million plus the remaining $4.1 million in compensatory (rather than punitive) damages. However, the matter is more complicated than that, with attorneys on both sides having their own opinion on how the ultimate award should be calculated. Attorneys for Jones are filing to have the amount reduced, while the parents’ attorney Mark Bankston said he’ll fight any reductions in court:

“We do not believe punitive damage caps are constitutional as applied to our case and will certainly litigate that issue if necessary.”

Criminal attorney Joshua Ritter told Insider that the award would likely be significantly reduced. But we may never know the actual amount Jones pays if the two parties reach an out-of-court settlement on the damages.

Jones still has plenty to worry about even if he doesn’t pay the full $49 million he was ordered to by a Texas judge and jury. Ritter adds that Jones’s next defamation case is in Connecticut rather than Texas, where the laws are more in the plaintiffs’ favor. Whether Jones will attempt to settle out of court there rather than being slapped with another big punitive ruling remains to be seen.

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Alex Jones Offers To Pay $55 Million Over Next Decade To Clear $1.5 Billion Sandy Hook Defamation Damages

ByJoseph Gibsonon December 21, 2023inArticles›Celebrity News

Disgraced and reputedly bankrupt broadcaster Alex Jones is on the hook for some $1.5 billion in damages for defaming families of the Sandy Hook shooting across two lawsuits, with still more fallout from the case still to come. Now, Jones has offered to settle up with a payment of that would come to a minimum total of $55 million, coming from a proportion of his income and proceeds from the sale of property over the next ten years.

$55 million is a lot of money but little more than a drop in a $1.5 billion bucket, and the Sandy Hook families who won their cases in court have filed a motion of their own to liquidate practically everything Jones owns in order to get what is rightfully theirs.

Now, both proposals are on their way to US Bankruptcy Court in Houston, Texas, where they will be debated between now and February, when hearings and a final decision on the matter are currently scheduled.

Christopher Mattei, a Connecticut attorney representing the Sandy Hook families, released a press statement criticizing Jones’s offer:

“The families’ plan is the only feasible path for ensuring that Jones’ assets are quickly distributed to those he has harassed for more than a decade.”

The Jones proposal has him paying out at least $5.5 million per year over ten years, a similar figure to what his company Free Speech Systems had offered a month earlier.

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Attorneys representing Sandy Hook families have their work cut out for them in securing the settlement. They’ve taken issue with Jones’s reported personal spending topping out at $90,000 per month over the course of 2023, and they’ve filed another lawsuit accusing him of hiding millions of dollars from creditors, an allegation that an attorney for Jones dismissed as “ridiculous.”

Jones is also in the process of appealing the defamation awards as well, asserting that his claims that the shooting was a hoax and that the surviving family members were “crisis actors” fell under protected free speech, something that few if any judges or juries that have considered the matter have agreed with so far.

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