Connecticut Supreme Court Rejects Alex Jones' Bid To Throw Out $1 Billion Sandy Hook Verdict
Connecticut's highest court upheld a ruling Tuesday that orders conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay around $1 billion in defamation damages to the families of a 2012 school shooting that he spent years falsely claiming was fake.
In a single sentence ruling, the state's Supreme Court said Jones' 'petition for certification to appeal from the Appellate Court ... is denied.'
In 2022, a jury in Waterbury, Connecticut, ruled Jones must pay nearly $1 billion in damages after they heard testimony from the families of those who died in the Sandy Hook school shooting, which left 20 kids and six adults dead.
In their testimony, the families described how Jones used his conspiracy platform, Infowars, to routinely harass grief-stricken family members by calling them 'crisis actors' and the shooting 'fake.'
Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son Dylan was killed, testified she was sent pictures of dead children by harassers as she mourned the death of her own.
'I got sent pictures of dead kids because [harassers said] as a 'crisis actor' I didn't know what dead kids looked like,' Hockley testified.
And parents Mark and Jackie Barden, whose 6-year-old son Daniel was killed, testified they received a letter from someone claiming to have urinated on their son's grave. Another letter threatened to dig up the child's grave.
As the families suffered, Infowars traffic spiked on days Jones discussed the shooting.
Jones was also ordered to pay $45 million in 2022 to two parents whose 6-year-old child died in the shooting in a separate trial in Texas.
Despite the verdicts, Jones has spent years appealing the cases and attempting to wriggle out of paying, including filing for bankruptcy.
In December, an appellate court upheld the ruling against Jones in the Connecticut case. The next month, Jones appealed to the state's Supreme Court, arguing he had been stripped of his First Amendment rights when the court imposed 'death penalty sanctions' on him.
Tuesday's one-sentence ruling made clear Jones' argument didn't carry weight.
Alinor Sterling, an attorney with the law firm Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder who represents several Sandy Hook families, said the ruling brings Jones one step closer to accountability.
'The Court's ruling brings the Connecticut families another step closer to their goal of holding Alex Jones accountable for the harms he caused and will enable them to press forward with collections proceedings against him,' Sterling said in a statement.
Norm Pattis, an attorney who represented Jones at his trial and who that same year said racial slurs with his pants down during a standup comedy set, told HuffPost he hopes Jones appeals to the nation's highest court.
'Somewhere, some place, there is a court that will see the case for the farce it became,' Pattis said in a statement. 'The court of last resort is the United States Supreme Court. I hope Alex petitions.'
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