Jones files for personal bankruptcy
Lists Sandy Hook families to whom he owes $1.5 billion as creditors
Alex Jones is personally seeking federal bankruptcy protection for nearly $1.5 billion he owes Sandy Hook families he defamed, according to a court document filed in Texas on Friday.
Jones, the embattled host and sole proprietor of the
Texas-based Infowars conspiracy news and merchandising platform, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing as his creditors an FBI agent and 16 members of Sandy Hook families who won defamation lawsuits against him.
It’s too soon to say what effect Jones’ third bankruptcy filing this year will have on the ability of Sandy Hook families to collect the hundreds of millions Jones owes them after jury awards in August and October in Texas and Connecticut,
except that all state court proceedings will be stalled while the higher federal bankruptcy court sorts out Jones’ financial mess.
After a hearing on Friday in Waterbury that had been scheduled to discuss freezing Jones’ assets was stalled due to his personal bankruptcy filing, the lead attorney for eight Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent who Jones defamed said justice would prevail.
“Like every other cowardly move Alex Jones has made, this bankruptcy will not work,” Chris Mattei said. “The bankruptcy system does not protect anyone who engages in intentional and egregious attacks on others, as Mr. Jones did. The American judicial system will hold Alex Jones accountable, and we will never stop working to enforce the jury’s verdict.”
On a federal bankruptcy form, Jones says his assets are worth no more than $10 million and that he owes
between $1 billion and $10 billion.
Sandy Hook parents in Texas and Connecticut won jury awards of $49.2 million and $965 million respectively against Jones in August and October. A Connecticut judge added on $473 million in punitive damages and attorney fees for the families in Connecticut.
A third trial in Texas to determine how much Jones must pay parents of a slain Sandy Hook boy who Jones defamed was planned for late March.
As the jury verdicts came in, Jones scoffed on his Infowars broadcast, saying he didn’t have anywhere near the hundreds of millions he suddenly owed the families he defamed.
The most Jones was said to have was $270 million, according to an economist who testified in the Texas trial.
If Jones’ latest bankruptcy filing sounds like a familiar story, it is and it isn’t. It’s true that Jones has already twice filed bankruptcy papers for a total of four companies he controls, but he had resisted filing for personal bankruptcy protection for practical and philosophical reasons.
From a philosophical standpoint, Jones did not want to file for personal bankruptcy protection for fear it would harm his brand as the “Coca-Cola of the conspiracy theory community.” A Jones representative told a bankruptcy judge in Texas in April that Jones feared that filing for personal bankruptcy would hurt his credibility with listeners and harm his product sales.
“It would ruin his name and harm his ability to sell merchandise,” Jones’ representative Marc Schwartz said at the time.
From a practical standpoint, there was no urgency for Jones to file for personal bankruptcy protection, a Jones representative said as recently as mid-October. The reason: Jones could simply wait until his appeals of the Texas and Connecticut jury verdicts were heard and decided, Jones’ lead bankruptcy attorney Shelby Jordan said.
At least two things happened after Jordan made that statement. In early November, state Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis assessed another $473 million in punitive damages and attorney fees Jones had to pay the families in Connecticut, on top of the $965 million the jury awarded. And in late November, a Texas judge overruled a state law capping damages at $750,000 and ordered Jones to pay the full $49.2 million a jury awarded the parents of a Sandy Hook boy Jones defamed.
Jones, who called the 2012 shooting of 20 first graders and six educators “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely fake with actors,” had yet to announce his personal bankruptcy on his Infowars website by late Friday morning.
On Friday during a brief status conference in Connecticut,
Jones’ New Haven attorney Norm Pattis suggested that the bankruptcy court could be petitioned to allow certain motions related to the damages awards to go forward, including Jones’ motion to nullify the $965 million jury award.
Pattis suggested the bankruptcy court could be petitioned to allow Jones to appeal the Connecticut jury verdict while the bankruptcy case is still active.
Bellis has scheduled a Dec. 19 conference to discuss the next steps.