WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court rejected an appeal from a conspiracy theorist on Tuesday Alex Jones and left in place the $1.4 billion judgment against him for his depiction of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as a hoax staged by crisis actors.
The Infowars host had argued that a judge was wrong to find him responsible for defamation and emotional distress without holding a trial on the merits of the allegations filed by relatives of the victims of the filmingthat killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut.
The justices did not comment on their order, which they issued without even asking the Sandy Hook victims’ families to respond to Jones’ appeal. An FBI agent who responded to the shooting also filed charges.
Jones filed for bankruptcy late 2022, and his lawyers told the judges that the “plaintiffs have no hope of recovering” the full judgment.
He appeals separately a $49 million judgment in a similar defamation lawsuit in Texas after failing to turn over documents requested by the parents of another Sandy Hook victim.
In the Connecticut case, Judge issued a rare decision by default against Jones and his company in late 2021 over what she called Jones’ repeated failure to follow court orders and turn over certain evidence to the Sandy Hook families. The judge summoned a jury to determine how much Jones owed.
The following year, the jury agreed on a verdict of $964 million and the judge then added another $473 million in punitive damages against Jones and Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, based in Austin, Texas.
In November, the satirical newspaper The onion was named the winner of an auction aimed at liquidating Infowars’ assets to help pay defamation judgments. But the bankruptcy judge threw away the auction resultsciting issues with The Onion’s process and offering.
The attempt to sell Infowars’ assets has been moved to Texas state court in Austin. Jones is now appealing a recent court order that appointed a receiver to liquidate assets. Some of Jones’ personal property is also being sold as part of the bankruptcy filing.
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