For a while there, it seemed as if Infowars founder Alex Jones was successfully stalling the payments to the Sandy Hook families, to whom he owes close to $1.5 billion in damages for defamation and emotional distress for lying about the murder of their loved ones. Nearly a year after the judgment came down in 2022, he was still spending lavishly on housekeepers and keeping up his boat, even as the families he defamed did not see a penny. In the midst of his personal bankruptcy, he was fighting to keep his control of Infowars, in part to retain his $1.5 million salary there.
But late on Thursday, Jones finally buckled when he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy to liquidate his assets — meaning that he is going to sell his ownership stake in the parent company behind Infowars, the conspiracy site that brought him fame and millions as he peddled misinformation and dietary supplements.
The move is a major win for the Sandy Hook families, who filed an emergency motion in federal bankruptcy court on Sunday claiming that Jones and his company had “failed to demonstrate any hope of beginning to satisfy” their claims. They had asked the court to change the case from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy — one that involves restructuring — to a Chapter 7, which means liquidation. Beyond losing his stake in Infowars, Jones recently got court permission to sell off his game ranch to pay the defamation penalty for claiming that the 2012 elementary-school shooting was a government hoax carried out by crisis actors. Twenty young children and six adults were killed in the attack.
On June 14, Jones will have his next hearing in bankruptcy court to determine how to move forward. Meanwhile, he has gone into bunker mode in his on-air shows. “All we’re trying to do is save America, and they’re fucking us over, over and over again,” he said over the weekend. “And it’s just so sick. It’s sick, it’s sick. I want to leave, because it’s going to be over, folks.”
Source link
