SANDY HOOK FAMILIES SEEK FULL DAMAGES

Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families who won historic defamation damages against Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones told a federal bankruptcy judge in Houston on Tuesday that Jones should not be allowed to use his Chapter 11 filing to evade $1 billion-plus verdicts made against him.

The families asked that the judge, Christopher Lopez, order Jones to pay them the full damage awards, with no possibility of a trial or a forced settlement over a lesser amount — in legal terminology, to make Jones’ debts to the families “non-dischargeable” through bankruptcy. If the judge rules in the families’ favor, Jones would likely be working the rest of his life to pay the debt.

Jones spent years spreading lies that the 2012 shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax aimed at gun control. Families of 10 victims sued him for defamation, and in trials in Texas and Connecticut were awarded about $1.4 billion in damages. As the cases went to trial, Infowars declared bankruptcy, and Jones declared personal bankruptcy late last year.

The families have been fighting him in bankruptcy court ever since.

On Tuesday, Jones’ lawyer, Chris Davis, argued that Jones did not show malice in an Infowars broadcast after the shooting, when Jones falsely accused CNN of staging an interview with Veronique De La Rosa, the mother of Noah Pozner, a 6year-old who died in the attack.

Much of the hearing focused on whether Jones acted with “willful and malicious” intent in spreading lies about the families. In bankruptcy law, debts incurred through actions that are deemed “willful and malicious” are exempt from the protections for debtors through the courts.

“His target is the deep state,” not the families, Davis told the judge, adding that Jones was raising questions about the official narrative of a national tragedy, as he has for other events.