Judge knocks down Alex Jones’ bid to lower $50 million Sandy Hook ruling

A Texas judge ordered far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to suck it up and pay up after knocking down his request to reduce a nearly $50 million defamation verdict against him over his lies that the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting never happened.

Judge Maya Guerra Gamble dismissed Jones’ lawyer’s argument that the August verdict in which a jury awarded the parents of one of the victims $49.3 million in damages violated a state law capping certain types of damages.

The Austin jury had ruled in favor of plaintiffs Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son was one of 20 first-graders killed at the school.

The parents claimed the Infowar host’s lies that the shooting was a government-crafted hoax meant to increase support for gun control led his followers to harass them for years.

Jones’ lawyers wanted a judge to slash more than $40 million off the damages, citing the state law that caps non-economic punitive damages.

However, Lewis and Heslin’s lawyers successfully argued that the cap doesn’t apply because the law specifically states that the limit is not included in cases involving the intentional abuse of a disabled person. They said the trauma the parents suffered over their son’s horrific death counted as a disability.

“Our clients are pleased that the jury’s verdict was upheld in totality and my remaining clients look forward to closing out this vile chapter of American history by continuing to hold Mr. Jones accountable,” Heslin and Lewis’ attorney, Mark Bankston, said following the hearing.

Jones’ lawyer said he plans to appeal.

The nearly $50 million verdict is not the only damages Jones must pay to the loved ones of Sandy Hook victims.

In a separate trial in Connecticut, a jury ordered the conspiracy theorist and his company, Free Speech Systems LLC, to pay nearly $1 billion in damages to more than a dozen families of victims in October.

Jones was then slammed with an additional $473 million in punitive damages for his “cruel” conduct by the judge in that case earlier this month.

He will face yet another defamation trial brought by Sandy Hook parents in Austin in March.

With Post wires.