The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review an appeal from Alex Jones, conspiracy theorist and founder of Infowars, who was seeking a way to avoid paying a $1.4 billion defamation judgment.
A decade after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that took the lives of 26 children and staff members, Jones was ordered to pay $1.4 billion in damages to some of the families who lost children. The families had sued Jones for defamation, asserting he falsely claimed on his Infowars show and website that the mass shooting was a hoax and that the victims’ family members were actors in a plot to enact extreme gun control legislation.
In 2022, a Connecticut jury awarded $965 million to the victims’ family members. Jones saw an additional $473 million in punitive damages.
The high court didn’t give a reason for denying his appeal, which is a normal practice of the court.
Jones previously attempted to use a personal bankruptcy proceeding to avoid paying the families in 2023. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher M. Lopez granted a motion for summary judgment in favor of the families.
A lawyer for the families, Chris Mattei of Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder in Connecticut, issued a statement to The Lawbook Tuesday.
“The Supreme Court properly rejected Jones’s latest desperate attempt to avoid accountability for the harm he has caused,” he said. “We look forward to enforcing the jury’s historic verdict and making Jones and Infowars pay for what they have done.”
Ben Broocks of Broocks Law Firm in Austin is representing Jones. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The family is also represented by Alinor Clemans Sterling of Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder.
The case is Alex Emric Jones, et al. v. Erica Lafferty, et al., 25-268.