The families of the Sandy Hook massacre victims claimed victory in Alex Jones’ bankruptcy case, accepting his proposal to sell his assets, including InfoWars, to partially pay the legal judgments for his lies about the 2012 U.S. school shooting.
Seventeen months after filing for U.S. bankruptcy protection, Jones has abandoned efforts to negotiate a bankruptcy deal that would reduce the $1.5 billion he owes to the relatives of 20 students and six staff members killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. This week, Jones decided to proceed with a court-supervised liquidation of his assets.
Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families, called Jones’ pivot to a Chapter 7 liquidation a moment of “meaningful accountability” for his repeated lies, pushing the broadcaster to the “brink of justice.”
“Alex Jones has hurt so many people,” Mattei said. “The Connecticut families have fought for years to hold him responsible no matter the cost and at great personal peril.”
Courts in Texas and Connecticut have ordered Jones to pay $1.5 billion to the Sandy Hook families after Jones claimed for years that the school killings were staged with actors as part of a government plot to seize Americans’ guns. Jones has since acknowledged that the shootings occurred.
Willful and malicious injury
Although bankruptcy can wipe out debts and legal judgments, the judge overseeing Jones’ case ruled in October that he cannot legally discharge most of the defamation verdicts because they resulted from “willful and malicious injury” caused by Jones. Jones’ decision to pursue a Chapter 7 liquidation doesn’t alter that ruling.
Jones had asked the Sandy Hook families to vote for a bankruptcy settlement that would have paid them $55 million, but they unanimously rejected the deal and offered their own proposal for selling his assets. On Friday, the families said in a court filing that they would back down from their plan and allow Jones to convert his case to a straightforward liquidation.
Judgements exceed assets
Jones has said that the defamation judgments far exceed the total value of his assets. While the liquidation will yield only a fraction of the money he owes the families, they objected to his proposal because it would have kept him in control of both InfoWars and his wealth for many years, while also capping the total amount he would pay toward the defamation claims.
The court-supervised liquidation will allow the families to benefit from immediate asset sales while keeping their claim on Jones’ assets alive in case he accrues wealth in the future. On his InfoWars website, Jones said Tuesday on “The Alex Jones Show” that he expects to lose everything except for his home in bankruptcy. However, he vowed to find a way to continue broadcasting and would “work for free” rather than be “silenced” by the legal judgments.
Attorneys for Jones and the Sandy Hook families did not immediately respond to questions about how Jones would address the lingering legal debts after his assets are sold off in bankruptcy. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston, Texas, will consider Jones’ request to convert his case to Chapter 7 liquidation at a June 14 court hearing.
