The right-wing conspiracy theorist was ordered in June to pay the colossal defamation judgement
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is poised to bid goodbye to his Infowars empire after a federal bankruptcy judge ruled Tuesday that assets of his media company can be auctioned off to help pay the $1.5 billion in damages he owes to the families of Sandy Hook victims.
Infowars’ website, social media accounts, broadcasting equipment, and product trademarks owned by Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, will all be up for grabs in mid-November, the New York Times reported.
Attorney Chris Mattei of Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder PC, who represents some of the victims’ families, called the decision a “significant step forward.” He added, “FSS will now be sold at auction, meaning 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 has caused.”
In the aftermath of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which 20 children and 6 administrators were killed, Jones repeatedly and falsely claimed that the shooting was a “hoax” and that the murdered children and their families were “crisis actors.”
In 2018, Jones was sued for defamation by relatives of 10 victims and was ordered to pay $1.5 billion in damages in Connecticut and Texas trials. Family members and law enforcement officials have testified to the onslaught of harassment they experienced from Jones’ InfoWars viewers. 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 threatening to dig up his body.
According to records obtained by HuffPost, Jones brought in $165 million from the Infowars store over three years beginning in September 2015 and continued to cash in as he continued to spread lies claiming the Sandy Hook school shooting was fake.
According to Bloomberg Law, a bankruptcy court converted Jones’ personal Chapter 11 into a Chapter 7 in June. A judge tossed out his Free Speech Systems’ separate bankruptcy entirely, allowing the families to pursue judgments against Jones’ media company in state courts.