The personal belongings of Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones were ordered to be liquidated and sold by a Houston bankruptcy judge on Friday, with the money going to the Sandy Hook families. However, the judge spared Mr. Jones from having to close the Infowars company.
The decision permits Mr. Jones to carry on with his Infowars broadcasts, while the families persist in their efforts to receive the substantial damages for defamation that were granted to them.
The Sandy Hook relatives were deeply divided by the outcome. Families who filed a lawsuit against Mr. Jones in Texas supported Friday’s ruling, which would maintain Mr. Jones’s broadcast status while enabling them to pursue a larger amount of damages from Infowars’ earnings. The families who sued Mr. Jones in Connecticut preferred to shut him down and accept a lesser settlement amount, even though they knew he would not be completely silenced.
It is anticipated that Mr Jones’s legal battle to overturn the decisions against him will take years.
The estimated worth of Mr Jones’s assets, according to court documents, is less than $5 million—a far cry from the $1.4 billion that jurors in Texas and Connecticut granted the families in late 2022.
Less than $250,000 is left over when the plaintiffs who are entitled to damages divide $5 million; however, this amount does not include significant legal and administrative fees associated with bankruptcy, which are paid beforehand.
The judge’s ruling was made over a decade after the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy in December 2012, which claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six teachers.
Mr. Jones spent years disseminating false information, claiming that the victims’ families were conspirators in the conspiracy and that the massacre was a fake intended to seize American firearms. The family experienced death threats, actual altercations, and internet harassment from conspiracy theorists.
“The right call is to dismiss this case,” Judge Christopher Lopez said in court on Friday afternoon, referring to his decision to dismiss the bankruptcy and keep Infowars in business. “This case is one of the more difficult cases I’ve had, but when you look at it, I think creditors are better served.”
In 2018, the families of ten victims filed a defamation lawsuit against Mr. Jones, and after trials in Texas and Connecticut, they were given damages over $1.4 billion.
In 2022, as the charges moved toward trial, Mr. Jones’s business filed for bankruptcy. Not long later, Mr. Jones filed for personal bankruptcy. The judge’s decision that Mr Jones’s assets should be liquidated by Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code and the proceeds of their sale distributed among the families who sued him in Connecticut and Texas was accepted by the families.
To be ready for a sale, Mr. Jones has been inventorying his belongings, including firearms, boats, precious metals, and other property. He has also obtained permission from the court to sell a $2.8 million game ranch in Kingsbury, Texas, which is valued at 127 acres. Vickie Driver, the attorney for Mr Jones, stated in court that the money from the sale of the land would be distributed to the families “on Day 1.”
However, the parties from Texas and Connecticut disagreed fiercely over how to pursue his company, Free Speech Systems. Attorneys representing the families of eight victims who sued Mr. Jones in Connecticut advocated closing the business and dividing the proceeds among the plaintiffs’ clients.
Although the Connecticut family’s attorneys contended that stopping Infowars was more essential than making money, the proceeds would be negligible.
“At the end of the day, this was all about holding Alex Jones accountable for his lies and the harm he’s done to not just Sandy Hook families but to so many other families and society,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie died in the shooting, said in comments texted to The New York Times.
In his final remarks, attorney Avi Moshenberg, who represented the families that filed the Texas lawsuit, expressed surprise at the bitterness amongst the attorneys who had previously stood together against Mr. Jones.
“‘What is the worst thing to do to Alex Jones to make him suffer?’ is not the norm. It serves the creditors’ interests the best, he declared.
Selling survival gear, diet pills, and other items on his show, Mr. Jones has amassed a fortune by spreading conspiracy ideas. In recent weeks, he has been inciting his listeners to become enraged over the Connecticut lawyers’ liquidation attempt. He has been crying and yelling over what he wrongly claims is a government-backed plot to shut down Infowars and silence him.
On his Infowars program earlier this month, he stated, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back. I’m kind of in the bunker here.” Attorneys for Mr. Jones claimed on Friday that sales of his products had reached a record $1 million per week, up roughly 40%, as a result of Infowars broadcasts in recent days.
Additionally, Mr. Jones has been advising prospective customers to purchase his diet supplements from his father, Dr. Jones’ Naturals, rather than from him. For many years, Infowars has received financial support and business advice from Mr. Jones’s father. These remarks were used by the Connecticut attorneys in court to support their claim that, should they be allowed to keep control of his company, he could not be relied upon to act in good faith to compensate the families.
The families’ attorneys concurred that Mr. Jones would eventually reorganize under a different company name, regardless of the judge’s ruling. Because of a previous court ruling that permits the families to pursue him for the remainder of his life for what they are due, they might also go after him for those earnings.
According to Mr. Moshenberg, the attorneys will keep pressuring Mr. Jones to swear he won’t lie about the massacre or bring up the victims or their families ever again on his program. This is a top concern for all the families.
“There’s been lots of talk of whether Jones would regain control of his business, but the reality is he never really lost it,” Judge Lopez said on Friday.
During one part of his speech, the judge seemed unable to contain himself and said, “There are no words” to express how Mr. Jones’s years of spreading false information about them had affected their families. “But here we are,” he added, regretting the decision he made at the beginning of Father’s Day weekend.
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