Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to pause his payments on a $1.44 billion defamation judgment entered after he claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
InfoWars publisher Alex Jones wants the Supreme Court to pause a $1.44 billion defamation judgment against him for making false claims about a 2012 school shooting.
Conservative conspiracy theorist Jones on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to pause his payments to the surviving families of the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, according to The Hill.
The families successfully sued Jones for defamation after he claimed the school shooting was a hoax and are readying to take control of InfoWars, which they intend to turn over to the satirical news site The Onion.
In Thursday’s emergency filing, Jones says the pause is necessary to stop his InfoWars site from being “acquired by its ideological nemesis and destroyed,” NBC News reported.
A Connecticut court in 2022 ordered Jones to pay $1.44 billion to the surviving families of 20 schoolchildren, who were shot and killed by Adam Lanza on Dec. 14, 2012.
Jones filed for personal bankruptcy soon after several judgments were entered against him, but his petition was denied.
He earlier was fined $25,000 per day by a Connecticut judge for refusing to submit to a deposition in the matter.
Lanza, 20, murdered his mother and used her firearm to shoot and kill 20 school children and six adults at the same elementary school he once attended in Newtown, Conn.
He shot and killed himself when law enforcement arrived at the school, which since has been razed and replaced.
