Alex Jones must sell off his personal assets in order to make the families of murdered students in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting whole, after he repeatedly defamed them and challenged facts on the tragedy.
A Texas bankruptcy judge ruled Friday that Jones could liquidate his assets, rejecting a plan to liquidate Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems, which owns InfoWars. Earlier this month, Jones agreed to liquidate personal assets by converting his bankruptcy filing to Chapter 7.
Jones, the far-right influencer and host of “Info Wars,” infamously referred to the devastating mass shooting as a “false flag” and claimed that “no one died.”
The 2012 shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut killed 26 people, including 20 children. Jones was first sued in 2018 for the false statements. As of September of last year, the families had yet to see any owed payments from Jones.
He owes more than $1.5 billion from multiple separate lawsuits to the victims of his lies, who faced death threats and psychological harm due to Jones.
Jones will now have to hand over his assets to a trustee, including his $2.8 million Texas home, though the integrity of his company was spared. Per Judge Christopher Lopez, it was not in the best interest of creditors, including the Sandy Hook families, to tear Free Speech Systems apart, though he noted the unusual span of time that its bankruptcy case has dragged on, according to the Associated Press.
Jones has spread conspiracies and misinformation for more than three decades, defaming not just Sandy Hook victims but Parkland shooting victims too, as well as making false statements about a D.C. pizza parlor, which was the victim of a conspiracy-driven shooting.
Jones also financed and allegedly coordinated parts of the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol, failing to make an immunity deal with federal prosecutors.
