A Houston judge on Friday allowed Alex Jones to liquidate his personal assets, including ownership of Infowars’ parent company, to help pay the families of the Sandy Hook massacre after he claimed the 2012 school shooting never happened.
Jones’ bankruptcy case will now be converted to a liquidation. An interim, court-appointed trustee will be tasked with converting most of Jones' personal assets into cash.
Back in 2018, relatives of the 20 children and six staffers killed at Sandy Hook Elementary sued Jones for defamation in Connecticut and Texas after he claimed the shooting was a hoax perpetuated by those in support of gun control. In the years that followed, the families said they were harassed by Jones’ viewers. They eventually won their cases against Jones in 2021. As a result, Jones was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the families — he’s currently appealing these verdicts. In December 2022, Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections for himself and his media company, Free Speech Systems, which has stalled the payment process.
Earlier this month, the families requested that Jones’ company be converted to a Chapter 7 liquidation, which is available to those who can't make regular, monthly payments toward their debts, according to the IRS. After some initial pushback, Jones agreed to liquidate his personal assets. Now, after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez’s ruling on Friday, the liquidation process can finally begin.
After Lopez’s ruling, the judge moved on to Jones’ media company, Free Speech Systems — which has a separate bankruptcy case — and whether to convert that case to a Chapter 7 liquidation.
Jones, who sat in the front row of the courtroom Friday morning, shook his head in silence as the families’ attorneys claimed he was diminishing the value of Free Speech Systems by encouraging Infowars viewers to buy supplements from another company that's partially owned and managed by Jones’ father. The attorneys argued that Jones’ behavior has lessened the amount of money that families would receive if the company is liquidated.
The victims’ families have also accused Jones of directing sales to his father’s company in an attempt to move money.
For weeks leading up to Friday’s court hearing, Jones had repeatedly told his viewers that Infowars could be shutting down soon. However, just before entering the court on Friday, Jones told reporters that his “fight against tyranny” was just beginning.
As of Friday afternoon, Judge Lopez hadn’t yet made a decision regarding the potential liquidation of Jones’ media company.
This is a developing story and will be updated.