In 2022, the conspiracy theorist claimed that a $1.4 billion judgment that would have to be paid to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax.
Published October 14, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ challenge to a $1.4 billion verdict awarded to the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut over the founder of the Infowars website’s false statements that the 2012 incident was a hoax.
The High Court handed down its judgment on Tuesday.
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The justices rejected his appeal in a defamation case from the Connecticut Court of Appeals to uphold most of the verdicts handed down by a judge and jury against 14 families of slain children and school staff in 2022, as well as FBI agents who responded to the shooting. In doing so, the nation’s highest judicial body left the verdict untouched.
In the incident, a 20-year-old former student shot and killed 26 people, 20 students and six staff members, at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, before committing suicide.
Mr. Jones argued that the ruling in the case brought against him in Connecticut violated his rights to due process and free speech under the U.S. Constitution. According to his Supreme Court filing, this is believed to be the largest decision in U.S. defamation litigation history.
He lost a similar case in Texas, but the nearly $50 million verdict in that case was much lower. Mr. Jones is appealing this decision separately. He declared bankruptcy after losing the lawsuit.
Jones was sued for defamation after calling the shooting a “false flag operation” aimed at stirring up anti-gun rights sentiment among Americans, and said the parents of the murdered children were “crisis actors” who were faking their grief in television interviews.
Mr. Jones has refused to cooperate with the legal process. He disputes the fact that Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis found him liable for defamation against his parents and that the six jurors were only asked to consider how much he should pay. A jury awarded compensatory damages of $965 million at a trial held in Waterbury.
The judge later added $473 million in punitive damages, which the Court of Appeals reduced to $323 million following Jones’ appeal. Jones challenged the original $1.4 billion in an appeal to the Supreme Court.
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The judgment was so large that it “could never be paid,” according to the filing, and the bankruptcy court ruled that Jones could not use bankruptcy to avoid paying his debts.
Jones said in a Supreme Court filing that the judge’s default judgment was based on “minor discovery errors” and “minor” errors by the attorneys, leading to an unfair trial.
Mr. Jones previously asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the 2021 Connecticut case after Mr. Bellis imposed sanctions for statements made publicly by Mr. Bellis before he was found liable for defamation. The Supreme Court declined to take the case at that time.
Mr. Jones has separately appealed the Texas loss and is currently challenging a court order forcing him to sell Infowars. Jones is facing two additional defamation lawsuits from other Sandy Hook parents and the family of a man who was mistakenly identified as the school shooter. These cases have not yet gone to trial.
