Alex Jones files for bankruptcy, seeks $1.4 billion in damages from Sandy Hook victims

96
2
Alex Jones files for bankruptcy, seeks $1.4 billion in damages from Sandy Hook victims

Informationwars host Alex Jones, who owes $1.4 billion in damages to Sandy Hook families after repeatedly claiming the 2012 elementary school massacre was a government hoax, filed for personal bankruptcy on Friday.

The Internet broadcaster and conspiracy theorist filed for chapter 11 in Texas, where his Infowars site had previously filed for chapter 11 protection during its lengthy and costly litigation with families of Sandy Hook victims.

In October a Connecticut jury ordered Jones and Infowars'parent company Free Speech Systems LLC to pay $965 million in damages to Sandy Hook victims families for falsely claiming that the Dec. 14, 2012, elementary school shooting was a hoax. The tragedy saw a 20-year-old gunman kill 26 people at the school, including 20 children between six and seven years old, and six adult staff members.

A judge ordered Jones and Infowars to pay $473 million in punitive damages for false conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook school massacre, and brought the total judgment against him in a lawsuit filed by the victims families to $1.4 billion.

A separate Texas case against Jones saw a jury decide in August that he must pay the parents of a 6 year-old boy killed in Sandy Hook shootings $45.2 million in punitive damages and $4.1 million in compensatory damages.

Friday s bankruptcy filing halts the ability of Sandy Hook families to collect judgments against Jones, and the matter of how he and his media company will compensate victims families will now go into bankruptcy court.

Jones's bankruptcy petition places his assets between $1 million and $10 million, which is far less than the $1.4 billion he and Infowars owe the Sandy Hook families. It is not clear how much money he has, but Jones said in November that he had only a couple hundred thousand dollars in his savings account.

The bankruptcy filling comes a day after Jones interviewed rapper Kanye West and far-right activist Nick Fuentes, both of whom have drawn outrage for spreading antisemitic rhetoric on Infowars. The segment drew backlash for giving West and Fuentes a platform, especially after the rapper made comments like I like Hitler. West was later suspended from Twitter for posting a picture of a swastika merged with the Star of David.