Alex Jones Files Bankruptcy: Reuters, December 2 – Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist, filed for bankruptcy on Friday after being forced to pay almost $1.5 billion for fabricating details of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.
According to a court document, Jones applied for Chapter 11 protection from creditors with the Houston bankruptcy court of the United States.
According to the statement, Jones has obligations between $1 billion and $10 billion and assets between $1 million and $10 million. Uncertainty surrounds Jones’ riches.
Jones has long maintained that the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which resulted in the deaths of 20 pupils and six staff members, was staged with actors as part of a government scheme to take American firearms. Although he has finally confessed to the incident, the plaintiffs claimed Jones made a fortune for years by lying about the massacre.
“Like every other cowardly move Alex Jones has made, this bankruptcy will not work,” said Chris Mattei, an attorney representing Sandy Hook families. “The American judicial system will hold Alex Jones accountable, and we will never stop working to enforce the jury’s verdict.”
According to Mattei, Jones had engaged in deliberate and outrageous attacks, and the bankruptcy system would not shield him. Requests for comment from Jones’s attorney were not immediately fulfilled.
In October, a Connecticut jury determined that Infowars’ parent business, Free Speech Systems, and Jones should compensate several Sandy Hook massacre victim families with close to $1 billion in damages.
Later, a Connecticut judge mandated that Jones pay $473 million more in punitive damages.
Families spoke in agony for weeks during the trial, describing how Jones’s lies about Sandy Hook worsened their suffering. In July, Free Speech Systems declared bankruptcy.
A Texas jury ruled in August that Jones must pay the parents of a 6-year-old boy slain in the Sandy Hook shooting $45.2 million in punitive damages in addition to $4.1 million in compensatory damages. This decision was made in a different lawsuit.
According to his attorneys, Jones will appeal the judgments in Texas and Connecticut.
Debts can be discharged through bankruptcy, but not if brought on by the debtor’s “willful or malicious harm.” According to Susan Block-Lieb, a bankruptcy law professor at Fordham University School of Law, Jones’ lies seem to fit this criterion.
“Defamation is pretty clearly an intentional tort – it is obvious in Alex Jones’s case,’ Block-Lieb said.
According to bankruptcy attorney Sidney Scheinberg, Jones runs the prospect of having to reveal all of his assets in court due to the petition.
“Now that he’s filed for bankruptcy, his assets are an open book,” Scheinberg said. “If you hide assets in a bankruptcy case, that’s a federal crime.”
In the Texas case, an economist determined that Jones’s net worth ranges from $135 million to $270 million.
The litigants who obtained judgments against Jones are listed as his biggest unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy filing.
A Connecticut jury awarded Robert Parker, the father of Emilie Parker, 6, $120 million, and FBI agent William Altenberg, one of the first law enforcement personnel on the scene of the 2012 shooting.
At the plaintiffs’ request, who maintained that Jones was attempting to conceal assets to avoid paying, Connecticut judge Barbara Bellis temporarily prohibited Jones from moving any personal assets outside the country.
The families have filed a lawsuit against Jones in a Texas state court, claiming that he has illegally transferred millions of dollars from his company to shell companies under his control. They claim that the transactions were made to protect Jones’ assets from lawsuits. Do you want to learn more about celebrities? Visit our website, Newswatchlist.com, for the most recent news.
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