HOUSTON—
Infowars host Alex Jones filed for non-public bankruptcy Friday in Texas, bringing up debts that come with nearly $1. 5 billion he ordered paid to families who sued him over his conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook school massacre.
Jones registered for Chapter bankruptcy coverage in Houston. Its record lists $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities and $1 billion to $10 million in assets.
Jones announced the unveiling of his Infowars screen, saying the case would end in bankruptcy and asking the audience to compare on his online page to help keep the screen in the air.
“Officially I don’t have cash anymore, personally,” Jones said. Everything will be classified. Everything will be public. And you’ll see that Alex Jones has almost no cash. “
Jones said he would comment more on the bankruptcy.
For years, Jones described the 2012 bloodbath as a hoax. In October, a Connecticut jury awarded the victims’ families $965 million in compensatory damages, and a ruling on the additional damages added another $473 million. Earlier this year, a Texas jury awarded the parents of a child killed in the shooting $49 million in damages.
The bankruptcy filing temporarily halted all proceedings in the Connecticut case. A judgment passed was forced to cancel a hearing scheduled for Friday on the Sandy Hook families’ request to protect the assets of Jones and his company to help pay the nearly $1. 4 billion in damages awarded.
Chris Mattei, Sandy Hook’s attorney in the Connecticut case, criticized the bankruptcy filing.
“Like all of Alex Jones’ other cowardly gestures, this bankruptcy will not work,” Mattei said in a statement. Alex Jones responsible, and we will never stop racing to defend the jury’s verdict.
An attorney representing Jones in the bankruptcy case did not return a message seeking comment.
In the Texas and Connecticut cases, family members of the 20 youths and six adults killed in the school shooting testified that they had been threatened and harassed for years by others who believed the lies told on Jones’ show. A father testified that conspiracy theorists urinated on his 7-year-old son’s grave and threatened to dig up the coffin.
Erica Lafferty, the daughter of Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, testified that others had sent rape threats to her home.
Jones laughed at the awards on his Infowars show, saying he had less than $2 million for his call and wouldn’t pay such gigantic sums. These comments contradicted testimony from a forensic economist at the Texas trial, who said Jones and his company Free Speech Systems had a combined net worth of up to $270 million. Free Speech Systems is also seeking bankruptcy protection.
In documents filed in Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy filing in Texas, a budget for the company from Oct. 29 to Nov. 25 estimated that product sales would total $2. 5 million, while operating expenses would be about $740,000. Jones’ salary is indexed at $20,000 each. two weeks.
Dave Collins and Jill Bleed for The Associated Press.
Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut, and Bleed reported from Little Rock, Arkansas.
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