Alex Jones asks US Supreme Court to hear appeal of $1.4 billion Sandy Hook judgment [View all]

Source: AP

By DAVE COLLINS
Updated 7:39 PM CDT, September 9, 2025

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal of the $1.4 billion judgment a Connecticut jury and judge issued against him for calling the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax staged by crisis actors.

The Infowars host is arguing that the judge was wrong to find him liable for defamation and infliction of emotional distress without holding a trial on the merits of allegations lodged by relatives of victims of the shooting, which killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut.

Judge Barbara Bellis, frustrated at what she called Jones’ repeated failure to abide by court rulings and to turn over certain evidence to the Sandy Hook families, issued a rare default ruling against Jones and his company in late 2021 as a penalty. That meant that she found him liable without a trial on the facts and convened a jury to only determine what damages he owed.

A six-person jury in Waterbury issued a $964 million verdict in October 2022 in favor of the plaintiffs — an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight children and adults who were killed. Bellis later tacked on another $473 million in punitive damages against Jones and Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company that is based in Austin, Texas.



Read more: https://apnews.com/article/newtown-school-shooting-alex-jones-6da0730e49f56a2e156df30365b88932