Anadolu: The US Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s appeal of a $1.4 billion defamation judgment for falsely claiming the deadly 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 26 people in the state of Connecticut was a hoax.
The ruling ends Jones’ efforts to reverse or reduce the monumental financial judgment, which has plunged him into bankruptcy and could force him to terminate his Infowars podcast and news service, according to media reports.
Jones’ Supreme Court petition classified the judgment as a “financial death penalty by fiat,” and stated that his statements about the shooting that killed 20 students and six staff in Newton were “lifted out of context.”
“Alex Jones is a media defendant entitled to all First Amendment freedom of the press protections,” said the petition, arguing that the judge in the original case did not give enough weight to Jones’ First Amendment constitutional rights to freedom of speech.
The Supreme Court apparently did not give the appeal much consideration before handing down the ruling, as the high court did not request the victims’ families to respond to Jones’s petition.
“The Supreme Court properly rejected Jones’s latest desperate attempt to avoid accountability for the harm he has caused,” Chris Mattei, an attorney representing the families, said in a statement.
Jones claimed for years that the killing of the 26 victims was staged with actors as part of a government plot to seize Americans’ guns and enact extreme gun control legislation.
He later acknowledged that the shooting actually happened, but the victims’ families said in court that the lies Jones had disseminated to the public prompted unrelenting harassment and death threats against them, and compounded the emotional agony of losing their loved ones.
The $1.4 billion award is one of the largest defamation judgments in US history, but it is still unclear how much the families will actually receive.
Jones filed for bankruptcy in July 2022, shortly after the judgment was handed down. Court filings showed that he had between $1 million and $10 million in assets, and between $1 billion and $10 billion in liabilities.
The victims’ families have requested that the courts sell assets owned by his company, Free Speech Systems, including Jones’ Infowars podcast and news service. A judge recently confirmed that those assets are not a part of the bankruptcy estate and that the families can pursue claims in state court.
The families recently convinced a judge in the state of Texas to appoint a receiver, though Jones is appealing that order. Jones’ company is based in Austin, Texas. “We look forward to enforcing the jury’s historic verdict and making Jones and Infowars pay for what they have done,” said Mattei.
