Alex Jones (Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images)
Embattled conspiracy theorist Alex Jones this week asked a federal bankruptcy court to liquidate his personal assets to help him pay out the $1.5 billion judgment levied against him for his repeated defamatory statements about the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, including his false claim that the tragedy was a “giant hoax.”
The move comes after the families last weekend filed an emergency motion in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas asking the presiding judge to order Free Speech Systems LLC, the parent company of Infowars, to sell off its assets and put the proceeds toward paying out the families Jones defamed. In the motion, the families argued that Free Speech Systems has “no hope” of coming up with a reorganization plan and has “failed to demonstrate any hope of beginning to satisfy the Connecticut Families’ claims.”
However, the court during a Monday hearing rejected the families’ request and allowed Jones to continue running his company until at least next Friday’s hearing.
In his latest filing asking the court to convert his Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 liquidation, Jones said there was “no reasonable prospect of a successful reorganization” of his debt. While Chapter 11 bankruptcy would allow Jones to retain control of his assets and create a debt restructuring plan, the increased administrative costs ultimately come with “little benefit” to Jones going forward, the document states.
Under a Chapter 7 liquidation, a court-appointed trustee would oversee the selling off of most of Jones’ assets, according to a report from Reuters. The process would likely force Jones to sell most of his personal property, including his right-wing conspiratorial empire Infowars. He would not have to sell items exempt from bankruptcy proceedings, such as his home and personal vehicle, among other things.
“Converting the case to Chapter 7 will hasten the end of these bankruptcies and facilitate the liquidation of Jones’s assets, which is the same reason we have moved to convert his company’s case to Chapter 7,” Chris Mattei, an attorney representing Sandy Hook families, told CNN.
Ultimately, it means that “ownership in Free Speech Systems is going to get sold,” Avi Moshenberg, another attorney representing the victim’s families told the network.
Jones last weekend released a four-hour episode of his Infowars show titled, “Emergency Broadcast.” Appearing to cry several times during the episode that aired Saturday, Jones also claimed that he was the true victim in the ordeal, and that the families of the deceased elementary school children were the ones who actually “hate” children.
“There’s really no avenue out of this. I’m kind of in the bunker here. And don’t worry. I’ll come back. The enemy can’t help but do this attack,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re going to beat these people. I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but it’s been a hard fight. These people hate our children.”
Jones followed up those comments on Tuesday by stating on-air that the Sandy Hook families were engaging in an effort to shut him down using a “made up kangaroo court.”
For years, Jones claimed that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax and the young victims were crisis actors as part of a false flag operation aimed at taking Americans’ guns. As a result, the victims’ families endured years of harassment and threats.
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