Alex Jones Loses by Default in Remaining Sandy Hook Defamation Suits

WASHINGTON — A state court in Connecticut granted a sweeping victory to the families of eight people killed in a 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., who had sued the far-right broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars media outlet for defamation.

The judge ruled on Monday that because Mr. Jones had refused to turn over documents ordered by the courts, including financial records, he was liable by default. The decision, combined with previous rulings in Texas in late September, means Mr. Jones has lost all the defamation lawsuits filed against him by the families of 10 victims.

Lawyers for Mr. Jones said he would appeal.

Mr. Jones for years spread bogus theories that the shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators was part of a government-led plot to confiscate Americans’ firearms and that the victims’ families were “actors” in the scheme. People who believed those false claims accosted the families on the street and at events honoring their slain loved ones, abused them online, contacted them at their homes and threatened their lives.

The parents of Noah Pozner, the youngest Sandy Hook victim, whose parents were the first to sue Mr. Jones, have moved nearly 10 times since the shooting, and live in hiding.

“I would love to go see my son’s grave and I don’t get to do that,” Noah’s mother, Veronique De La Rosa, said in an interview after the cases were filed in 2018. Each time the family moved, conspiracists published their new home address “with the speed of light,” she said.

The Sandy Hook families maintain that Mr. Jones profited from spreading lies about their relatives’ murders. Mr. Jones has disputed that, while for years failing to produce sufficient records to bolster his claims.