In June, the right-wing conspiracy theorist was ordered to pay a huge fine for defamation.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is preparing to bid farewell to his Infowars empire after a federal bankruptcy judge ruled Tuesday that his media company's assets could be auctioned off to help pay $1.5 billion in damages he owes to Sandy Hook victims' families.
Infowars' website, social media accounts, broadcast equipment and product brands owned by Infowars' parent company, Free Speech Systems, will all be up for grabs in mid-November. New York Times It has been reported.
“This is a significant step forward,” said Chris Mattei, a lawyer at Koskoff Koskoff & Beder PC, who represents some of the victims’ families. “FSS will now be auctioned, meaning that Alex Jones will no longer own or control the company he built. This brings the families closer to their goal of holding him accountable for the harm he caused.”
In the wake of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which 20 children and six administrators were killed, Jones repeatedly claimed that the shooting was a “hoax” and that the children killed and their families were “crisis actors.”
In 2018, relatives of 10 victims sued Jones for defamation, and he was awarded $1.5 billion in damages in trials in Connecticut and Texas. Family members and law enforcement officials have testified about the onslaught of harassment they have faced from viewers of Jones’s “InfoWar” show. Jackie Barden, whose son Daniel was killed in the shooting, testified in Connecticut about receiving letters from people claiming to have desecrated her son’s grave and threatened to dig up his body.
According to records obtained by the Huffington Post, Jones made $165 million from Infowars over a three-year period beginning in September 2015 and continued to make money while continuing to spread lies claiming the Sandy Hook school shooting was faked.
according to Bloomberg LawIn June, a bankruptcy court converted Jones' Chapter 11 personal bankruptcy to Chapter 7. The judge vacated Free Speech Systems' entire bankruptcy, allowing the families to pursue Jones' media company in state courts.
