WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to hear a challenge by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to a $1.4 billion judgment awarded to families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in Connecticut over the Infowars website founder's false statements that the 2012 incident was a hoax. The justices turned away his appeal of the Connecticut Appellate Court's decision in a defamation lawsuit against him to uphold most of the judgment issued by a judge and jury in 2022 to 14 family members of children and school employees who were killed and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting. Twenty-six people - 20 students and six staff members at the school in Newtown, Connecticut - were killed in the incident by a 20-year-old former student who then fatally shot himself.