Judge allows Alex Jones to sell assets to help settle debt from Sandy Hook defamation verdicts

Judge allows Alex Jones to sell assets to help settle debt from Sandy Hook defamation verdicts
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Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones requested on Friday that his bankruptcy petition be changed to a personal asset liquidation in order to satisfy the substantial defamation verdicts owed to the relatives of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre victims. The motion was approved by a federal bankruptcy judge.

However, the judge rejected Jones’ media firm, Free Speech Systems, bankruptcy petition, thus enabling him to continue broadcasting but raising doubts about the show’s future on Infowars.

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In 1999, Jones established Infowars, a free speech organization.

“Today, I was never asked to decide whether or not to end a show. In his decision, Southern District of Texas Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez stated, “That, in one way or another, was never going to occur today.” “This is one of the trickier cases I’ve handled. Upon closer inspection, I believe that creditors would be better off pursuing their rights in state court.”

Lopez stated that it was in the best interests of the estate and creditors to dismiss the company’s bankruptcy action.

After Jones repeatedly suggested on his show that the Sandy Hook shooting was a fake, families who sued him claimed he had defamed them and caused them severe anguish. The families won lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas and were granted a total of $1.5 billion in damages. On December 14, 2012, a gunman opened fire at the school in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 first-graders and six adults.

However, the families that filed their lawsuit in Connecticut and those that filed in Texas disagreed in court on Friday regarding whether the separate Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing made by Free Speech Systems should be changed to a Chapter 7 liquidation; the families from Connecticut preferred liquidation, while the families from Texas wanted the bankruptcy case to be dismissed.

A Connecticut family’s attorney claimed that if the company’s bankruptcy case was dismissed, the families would fight each other in their state courts over the money. Meanwhile, a Texas family’s attorney contended that a company liquidation would take longer for all of the plaintiffs to receive the money owed in the defamation verdicts. Jones also desired the dismissal of the company’s bankruptcy action.

“There’s no right or easy answer here,” Lopez remarked, seeming to deliberate about his choice.

The judge’s decision, according to Connecticut Sandy Hook families’ attorney Christopher Mattei, gives them the right to “step right once to pursue collection against all Infowars assets, and that is precisely what we plan to do.”

“For far too long, Jones exploited his position to cause survivors of the Sandy Hook massacre unspeakable emotional suffering and more than $1 billion in damages.” Mattei stated in a statement. “Mr. Jones’s assets will be utilized to settle some of his obligation because he and the soon-to-be-defunct Infowars are unable to pay it. The remaining amount will be paid by us using any future earnings he may have.”

In order to assist Jones in converting his Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition into a Chapter 7 liquidation, which gives the trustee the authority to manage and sell Jones’ assets, Lopez stated he would name an interim trustee.

Vickie Driver, Jones’ attorney, informed Lopez that the trustee might get funds from the sale of Jones’ $2.8 million Texas ranch.

The relatives of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims had also sought Lopez to appoint a permanent trustee who can “protect resources and stop more value degradation” in a document prior to Friday’s session. This is because Jones is required to settle a substantial amount of money he owes them in defamation awards.

Along with accusing Jones of “odd behavior for the previous few weeks,” the families in the lawsuit cited remarks he made on his show in which he claimed to have no assets save the money he may make from selling dietary supplements. Specifically, he has instructed his listeners to keep purchasing the goods from a website connected to his father, David Jones, a dentist referred to as “Dr. Jones,” the lawsuit states.

The families contend that Jones is attempting to use funds intended for his media company, Free Speech Systems, to fund his other ventures.

Jones’s “The use of the Infowars name and infrastructure in blatant and persistent attempts to transfer FSS estate property to a father-owned unrelated corporation is purposely value damaging,” according to the families.

In court, the driver refuted the allegations.

During his 2022 trial in Texas, Jones primarily accused the “corporate media” of misrepresenting him and distorting his words, although he did not provide specifics.

That year, Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a move that plaintiffs’ attorneys characterized as a ploy to avoid having to pay the bill. Last year, a judge decided that Jones, who had claimed in court filings to have nearly $9 million in personal assets, was not eligible to use bankruptcy as a means of eradicating the judgments.

In a court statement dated last week, his attorneys claimed that “There’s no chance in hell that this restructure will work.” of his obligations. Accordingly, they are asking the judge to grant them permission to change his bankruptcy file to Chapter 7 liquidation.

The relatives of Sandy Hook in Connecticut said they are in favor of the judge’s decision to allow Jones’ personal assets to be liquidated because they want to know how he will be able to pay them back and also assist Free Speech Systems, which had filed for bankruptcy.

After years of divisive rhetoric, a family lawyer representing Jones stated last week that Jones’s payment of his debts is a necessary component of “meaningful accountability.”

This week, Jones implied on his program that Infowars may cease as his listeners know it in a few days.

“I’m going to stay with the ship until it fully sinks,” he remarked. He continued, “I’ll then board the following ship at the last possible moment.”

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