The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from Alex Jones and left in place the $1.4 billion judgment against him over his description of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as a hoax staged by crisis actors.
He has to pay all legal fees.
The Infowars host argued that a judge was wrong to find him liable for defamation and infliction of emotional distress. He placed emphasis on his free speech rights. The family of 20 murdered first graders and six teachers in Newtown, Connecticut said they were getting death threats because of his allegations. They definitely were very distressed in interviews.
An FBI agent who responded to the shooting also sued.
Jones filed for bankruptcy in late 2022, and his lawyers told the justices that the “plaintiffs have no possible hope of collecting” the entire judgment.
He faces another $49 million judgment in a similar case in Texas.
In the Connecticut case, the judge issued a rare default ruling against Jones and his company in late 2021 because of what she called Jones’ repeated failure to abide by court rulings and to turn over certain evidence to the Sandy Hook families.
The following year, the jury agreed on a $964 million verdict and the judge later tacked on another $473 million in punitive damages against Jones and Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, based in Austin, Texas.
A court-appointed receiver in Texas will liquidate his assets, including personal items.
The Onion won control of Infowars illegally in a secret auction and a judge threw it out. Currently, no one has control of Infowars.
I didn’t think the case would be thrown out, but I am surprised that the excessive judgment stands. How will this affect future cases? It’s a field day for lawyers.
I do think Jones will lose in the end, but he has a site on X and other avenues of communication. However, since he can never pay the judgement, they will probably keep suing. He said his First Amendment rights were violated.
What Jones did was despicable and he deserves this judgement.
The trial was a complete fraud, the judge stated day 1 that Jones was guilty. Jones was not allowed to present evidence or claim innocence.
Those actors did not get death threats over anything Jones said. They did not file for over 10 years!!!