Jones faces nearly $1.5bn in court-ordered judgments for spreading lies about the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has launched a conspiracy theory as US courts ordered the Infowars group to pay nearly $1.5bn for spreading falsehoods about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a court in Houston, Texas on Friday. The documents say Jones has $1bn to $10bn in debt and $1m to $10m in assets.
For years, Mr. Jones has said that the 2012 massacre of 20 students and six staff at Sandy Hook was a hoax, and that many of the victims were “actors” used by the government.
Jones admitted that the shooting was “100 percent real”, but the victims’ relatives said that they had been harassed and threatened for years, even death threats, from people who believed the lies that Jones was spreading.
In October, a Connecticut jury awarded the families who took Jones to court $965m in restitution, following weeks of grief for victims’ loved ones who said their lives were changed by Jones’ lies.
“Each of these families [was] They are drowning in grief, and Alex Jones put his foot on top of them,” the family’s lawyer told the jury.
At the beginning of the year, the court in Texas also awarded the families $ 49m, and in November, the judge ordered Mr. Jones to pay $ 473m to the families, which brought about $ 1.5bn.
Jones’ bankruptcy case has put a temporary hold on the Connecticut case, forcing a judge to cancel a hearing that had been scheduled for Friday morning.
The lawsuit would have dealt with a request by the families of Sandy Hook to join the estate of Jones and his company for damages, the Associated Press reported.
Jones has said he cannot pay the fines, and the extent of his assets is unknown. However, a financial expert in the Texas case estimated Jones’ net worth at between $135m and $270m.
Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems, also filed for bankruptcy in July.
A Connecticut judge, Barbara Bellis, temporarily banned Jones from moving any assets out of the country after the plaintiffs alleged that Jones was trying to hide assets to avoid payment.
“Like every act of cowardice Alex Jones has done, this refund will not work,” Chris Mattei, an attorney representing the Sandy Hook families, said Friday. “The US Supreme Court will indict Alex Jones, and we will not stop working to uphold the jury’s verdict.”
Jones’ lawyer did not return a request for comment from Reuters.
Foreclosure can be used to settle a debt, but not if it is due to “willful or malicious injury” by the borrower. Jones’s lies appear to meet that standard, said Susan Block-Lieb, a professor of bankruptcy law at Fordham University School of Law.
“Defamation is intentional – it’s clear in the case of Alex Jones,” Block-Lieb told Reuters.
Meanwhile, Jones continues to host his own show. On Thursday, Jones welcomed Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who has made many anti-Semitic statements and praised Hitler.
