Conspirator Alex Jones’ assets will be sold to pay a $1.5 billion debt to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.
A judge on Friday ordered the liquidation of Alex Jones’ personal assets but dismissed a separate bankruptcy case against his company, leaving the future of his news platform Infowars uncertain as he owes $1.5 billion over his false claims about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. a deceiver.
Judge Christopher Lopez approved changing Jones’ personal bankruptcy reorganization to liquidation, but dismissed the reorganization effort of his company, Austin, Texas-based Free Speech Systems. Many Sandy Hook families had called for the company to be terminated as well.
Had Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy reorganization been converted to liquidation, Jones would have lost ownership of the company, its social media accounts, the Infowars studio in Austin and all copyrights as the company’s assets were sold. Jones smiled as the judge dismissed the company’s case.
It was not immediately clear what would happen to Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars that Jones built into a multibillion-dollar company 25 years ago.
Another scenario would be that the company and Infowars were allowed to continue operating while efforts to collect on the $1.5 billion debt were made in federal courts in Texas and Connecticut, where the families won cases against Jones, according to lawyers involved in the case.
Another scenario is that attorneys for the Sandy Hook families go back to bankruptcy court and ask Lopez to liquidate the company as part of Jones’ lawsuit, because Jones owns the business, the attorneys said.
Lopez said his only focus on deciding whether to dismiss the Free Speech Systems lawsuit or order it to be dismissed is what is best for the company and its creditors, including the families of Sandy Hook. Lopez also said that the case of Free Speech Systems seems to be one of this type that has been going on for a long time in this country, and the deadline to solve it is approaching.
“I was never asked today to make a decision to close the program or not. That would not happen today somehow,” said Lopez. “This case is one of the most difficult cases I have ever had. When you look at it, I think creditors are better served pursuing their rights in federal courts.”
Most of Jones’ possessions will be sold, but his main home in the Austin area and other possessions will not be liquidated. He has moved to sell his nearly $2.8 million Texas ranch, gun collection and other assets to pay off debts.
Before Friday’s hearing, Jones had been telling his web viewers and radio listeners that Free Speech Systems was about to close due to bankruptcy. He urged them to download the videos from his archive to save them and pointed them to the new website of his father’s company if they want to continue buying the food supplements he sells in his program.
“This is probably the end of Infowars here, soon. If not today, in the next few weeks or months,” Jones told reporters before Friday’s hearing. “But it’s just the beginning of my fight against tyranny.”
Jones has personal assets of about $9 million, according to recent financial court filings. Free Speech Systems, which employs 44 people, has about $6 million in cash and $1.2 million in equity, according to J. Patrick Magill, the chief restructuring officer appointed by the court to manage the company during the bankruptcy.
Jones and Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022, in which relatives of many of the victims of the 2012 school shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, won more than $1.4 billion in civil judgments in Connecticut and $1 million in damages. -49 in Texas. .
Chris Mattei, the family’s attorney in the Connecticut case, said that shutting down Free Speech Systems “will cost Connecticut families $1.4 billion in judgments now and in the future and also deprives Jones of the ability to harm as many people as he has done for about 25 years.”
These relatives say they are hurt by Jones’ comments and the actions of his followers. They have testified about being harassed and threatened by Jones’s believers, some of whom are directly related to the bereaved families who say that this incident never happened and their children were never there. Another parent said that someone is threatening to dig up the grave of his dead son.
Jones and Free Speech Systems initially filed for bankruptcy protection that would have allowed him to run Infowars while paying families with money from his show. But the two sides couldn’t agree on a final plan, and Jones recently filed for permission to change his bankruptcy from reorganization to suspension.
Families in the Connecticut case, including relatives of the eight deceased children and adults, have asked that the bankruptcy case of Free Speech Systems also be turned into liquidation. But the parents in the Texas suit – whose child, Jesse Lewis, 6, died – want the company’s lawsuit dismissed.
The company’s lawyers filed documents showing they support liquidation, but Jones’ bankruptcy attorneys wanted the judge to dismiss the company’s case.
Kyle Kimpler, an attorney for the families seeking the termination, told the judge that the dismissal could lead to a “run to court.” It is possible that one family gets everything and another gets nothing, he added.
Although Jones has admitted that the Sandy Hook shooting happened, he has been saying in recent comments that Democrats and the “deep state” are conspiring to shut down his companies and take away his free speech rights. He also said that the families of Sandy Hook are being used as pawns in this conspiracy. Family lawyers say that’s nonsense.
The families have a lawsuit pending in Texas accusing Jones of illegally diverting and concealing millions of dollars. Jones dismissed the allegations.
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