The US Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over a $1.4bn (£1bn) judgment against him after he described the Sandy Hook shooting as a hoax.
The Infowars host, who filed for bankruptcy in late 2022, had argued that the judge was wrong to find him liable for defamation and infliction of emotional distress without holding a trial.
But the US Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge from Mr Jones over the money, set to be awarded to the families of the victims of the shooting.
The tragedy saw 20 primary school children and six teaching staff killed in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
Justices on Tuesday upheld most of the judgment, issued by a judge and jury in 2022, to 14 family members of children and school employees killed and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting.
Mr Jones’s lawyers told the justices that the “plaintiffs have no possible hope of collecting” all of the money.
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Chris Mattei, a lawyer representing the Sandy Hook families, said they were looking forward to enforcing the judgment.
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He said the court had properly rejected Mr Jones’s “latest desperate attempt to avoid accountability for the harm he has caused”.
What did Alex Jones say about Sandy Hook?
The right-wing figure falsely claimed the incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School was staged by actors.
Mr Jones was sued for defamation after calling the shooting a “false flag” operation designed to stir up anti-gun sentiment among Americans.
He also falsely claimed the parents of the children were “crisis actors” faking grief in TV interviews.
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Mr Jones has argued that the $1.4bn judgment in the lawsuit brought against him violated his constitutional rights to due process and free speech.
It is understood to be the largest judgment in American libel case history, according to Mr Jones’s filing to the US Supreme Court.
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Mr Jones is separately appealing against a $49m (£37m) judgment in a similar defamation lawsuit in Texas, after failing to turn over documents sought by the parents of another Sandy Hook victim.
Jones also faces two more defamation lawsuits from other Sandy Hook parents, and the man falsely identified as a school shooter. Those cases have not yet gone to trial.
