Facing $1.5B in court judgments, Infowars host Alex Jones files for bankruptcy

Austin resident and Infowars host Alex Jones filed for personal bankruptcy protection on Friday as he faces nearly $1.5 billion in court judgments over conspiracy theories he spread about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in bankruptcy court in Houston. His filing lists $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities owed to 50 to 99 creditors and $1 million to $10 million in assets.

The bankruptcy filing comes as Jones faces court orders to pay nearly $1.5 billion in damages to relatives of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for calling the massacre a hoax.

Jones acknowledged the filing on his Infowars broadcast, saying the bankruptcy case will prove that he’s broke and asking viewers to shop on his website to help keep the show on the air.

“I’m officially out of money, personally,” Jones said. “It’s all going to be filed. It’s all going to be public. And you will see that Alex Jones has almost no cash.”

Jones said he would not be commenting further on the bankruptcy.

More:What did Alex Jones say about the Sandy Hook shooting?

A Connecticut jury in October awarded the families $965 million in compensatory damages, and a judge later tacked on an additional $473 million in punitive damages.

Earlier in the year, an Austin jury awarded the parents of a child killed in the shooting $49 million in damages. The judge in that case announced late last month she plans to order Jones to pay the full $49.3 million, despite a Texas law that caps punitive damages.

The bankruptcy filing temporarily halted all proceedings in the Connecticut case and forced a judge to cancel a hearing scheduled for Friday morning on the Sandy Hook families’ request to attach the assets of Jones and his company to secure money for the nearly $1.4 billion in damages awarded there.

Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut case, criticized the bankruptcy filing Friday.

“Like every other cowardly move Alex Jones has made, this bankruptcy will not work,” Mattei said in a statement. “The bankruptcy system does not protect anyone who engages in intentional and egregious attacks on others, as Mr. Jones did. The American judicial system will hold Alex Jones accountable, and we will never stop working to enforce the jury’s verdict.”

In the Austin and Connecticut cases, some relatives of the 20 children and six adults killed in the school shooting testified that they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’ show. One parent testified that conspiracy theorists urinated on his 7-year-old son's grave and threatened to dig up the coffin.

Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung, testified that people mailed rape threats to her house.

Jones has laughed at the jury awards on his Infowars show, saying he has less than $2 million to his name and won’t be able to pay such high amounts. The comments contradicted the testimony of a forensic economist at the Austin trial, who said Jones and his company Free Speech Systems have a combined net worth as high as $270 million. Free Speech Systems also is seeking bankruptcy protection.

In documents filed in Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy case in Houston, a budget for the company for Oct. 29 to Nov. 25 estimated product sales would total $2.5 million, while operating expenses would be about $740,000. Jones’ salary was listed at $20,000 every two weeks.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Facing $1.5B in judgments, Infowars host Alex Jones files for bankruptcy