HARTFORD, Connecticut – The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Infowars presenter and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was battling a Connecticut court sanction in a defamation lawsuit filed by relatives of some of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shoot.
Jones was penalized in 2019 by a court judge for an outburst on his Web program against a family lawyer and for violating several orders to hand over documents to family lawyers. Judge Barbara Bellis forbade Jones to file a motion to close the case, which remains pending, and said she would order Jones to pay some of the families’ legal fees.
Jones argued that he should not have been punished for exercising his freedom of expression rights. The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld Bellis’s decision last year.
The families and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting, which left 20 first-year students and six educators dead, are suing Jones and his program for allegations that the massacre was a scam. The families said they were victims of harassment and death threats from Jones’ followers because of the fraudulent conspiracy.
Jones, whose show is based in Austin, Texas, has since said he believes the shooting occurred.
The US Supreme Court rejected Jones’ request to hear his appeal without comment.
Jones’ lawyer, Norman Pattis, called the court’s decision “a disappointment”.
“Judge Bellis and the Connecticut Supreme Court have declared that there is frightening and non-standard power over litigants’ out-of-court statements,” Pattis said in an email to the Associated Press. “Mr. Jones never threatened anyone; if he had, he would have been charged with a crime. We are moving, case by case, towards a toothless and politically correct First Amendment.”
Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, said Jones deserved to be punished for his threatening comments about the program.
“Families are eager to resume the case and hold Jones and his financial network accountable for their actions,” said Koskoff in a statement. “From the beginning, our goal has been to prevent future victims of mass shootings from being pursued by opportunists.”
The sanction came after Jones, at Infowars in 2019, accused a family lawyer, Christopher Mattei, of planting child pornography that was found in email metadata files that Jones handed over to Sandy Hook family lawyers. Pattis said the pornography was in emails sent to Jones that were never opened.
“You are trying to get me involved in child pornography,” Jones said on the show. “A million dollars, you little gang members. A million dollars to put your head on a spear. “
Jones showed a photo of Mattei, a former federal prosecutor, and said, “I’m done. Total war. You want this? You got it.”
Jones added: “One million dollars when they are convicted. The reward is out, (expletive). … They will take your (expletive), your little bag of dirt. One million, (expletive). It’s out of your (expletive). “
The Connecticut Supreme Court said that the sanctions against Jones did not conflict with the First Amendment because they were imposed due to the speech that was an “imminent and likely threat to the administration of justice”. Supreme Court President Richard Robinson wrote: “language that evokes threats of physical harm is not tolerable.”
Families are suing Jones, Infowars and others for defamation and the imposition of emotional distress. They are seeking compensation that has not yet been determined.
“Certain individuals persistently perpetuated a monstrous and unspeakable lie: that Sandy Hook’s shooting was staged and that the families who lost loved ones that day are actors who feigned the death of their relatives,” the suit says.
The lawsuit called Jones “the most prolific among these manufacturers”, although he did not believe the shooting was a scam, and claimed that Jones made tens of millions of dollars a year using false narratives.
Jones’ previous lawyer argued that comments on his program about the shooting being a scam were protected by the rights of free speech, and Jones allowed others to express his views that the massacre was false because he is a “supporter of free debate. and open “
Sandy Hook’s families have also sued Jones and others for defamation in other states related to the fraudulent conspiracy.
In one case, a Texas judge in 2019 ordered Jones to pay $ 100,000 in attorney fees and refused to close the case. And a jury in Wisconsin awarded $ 450,000 to one parent in their lawsuit against conspiracy theorists, not including Jones, who claimed the massacre never happened.