A federal judge has ordered the liquidation of political commentator Alex Jones’s personal assets to pay families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Lopez is still deciding on a separate bankruptcy case involving Mr. Jones’s company, leaving the future of the InfoWars platform in doubt.
The judge on June 14 approved converting Mr. Jones’s proposed personal bankruptcy reorganization to a liquidation. He planned to hear testimony on whether Mr. Jones’s company, Austin, Texas-based Free Speech Systems, should also be liquidated. Free Speech Systems is Infowars’ parent company.
The ruling means that many of Mr. Jones’s personal assets will be sold off. However, his primary home in the Austin area and some other belongings are exempt from bankruptcy liquidation. He has already moved to sell his Texas ranch, worth about $2.8 million, a gun collection, and other assets to help pay debts.
Jones Responds
Ahead of the ruling, the InfoWars host has been telling his viewers that his company is on the verge of being closed because of bankruptcy.“I think it’s very accurate to say Infowars is a sinking ship,” Mr. Jones said on his show on June 12, ahead of the judge’s ruling.
He said that the site will “live on through all the great work we’ve done, all the reports we’ve filed, through you saving them and you sharing them, and, of course, I will come back stronger than ever.”
Before the judge’s ruling on June 14, Mr. Jones told reporters at the courthouse that it’s “probably the end of Infowars here very, very soon” but is the “beginning of my fight against tyranny.”
In a June 14 social media post, Mr. Jones responded to reports that the Sandy Hook families are aiming to file a lawsuit to seize his social media accounts by saying that the accounts are his “personal thing.”
“I didn’t kill those kids,” he said, referring to the mass shooting in which shooter Adam Lanza gunned down more than two dozen people. “I barely ever talked about them, I covered the internet questioning the shooting.
“Now, they are literally trying to take over my social media.”
Earlier this month, Mr. Jones had said during multiple live-streaming events that InfoWars would be taken down in the near future, coming ahead of the judge’s ruling.
Lawsuits
The families of a number of Sandy Hook shooting victims had sued Mr. Jones and won the Texas and Connecticut trials, arguing that they were traumatized by his remarks on his platform and by claims made by his viewers. They said during the two trials that they were harassed and targeted by his followers, who said the shooting never occurred.He has denied that he should pay the families, although he testified in court in 2022 that he believes that his comments about the shooting were “absolutely irresponsible” and said the shooting was real. He has also argued that the lawsuit against him was an attempt to silence him and violated his constitutional rights.
In previous court filings, lawyers for the Sandy Hook families have been seeking liquidation of Mr. Jones’s assets. He has estimated that he has less than $12 million in assets, meaning that he will carry an enormous legal debt even after Infowars and his other assets are sold.
Chris Mattei, an attorney for the families in the Connecticut case, didn’t respond by press time on June 14 to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
