Alex Jones’ Infowars files for bankruptcy amid Sandy Hook lawsuits
Three businesses tied to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones filed for bankruptcy Monday as the “Infowars” host faces damages from a lawsuit filed by the families of Sandy Hook victims.
Infowars, IWHealth (known as Infowars Health) and Prison Planet TV have each filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of Texas, according to filings obtained by the Daily News. All three were filed by the same attorney.
Infowars, Jones’ far-right website that creates and promotes conspiracy theories, claimed in the filings to have less than $50,000 in assets and between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities. IWHealth claims to have between $500,000 and $1 million in assets and between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities. And Prison Planet TV claims to have less than $50,000 in assets and between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities.
The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings will put on hold the collection of any damages incurred by Jones, who is awaiting a defamation trial in Texas later this month to determine how much he owes one set of suing families.
“Alex Jones is just delaying the inevitable: a public trial in which he will be held accountable for his profit-driven campaign of lies against the Sandy Hook families who have brought this lawsuit,” Christopher Mattei, the attorney representing the families, told The News in a statement Monday.
Last year, Jones was found liable for damages in Connecticut after the families of eight victims and an FBI agent sued him for saying the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax. Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 elementary school students and six staff members at the Newtown, Conn., school on Dec. 14, 2012.
The families have alleged that they faced harassment and death threats after Jones claimed the school shooting was staged with paid actors.
Jones blamed his conspiracy theory on “a form of psychosis” and since retracted it.
“Well, I’m just saying that the trauma of the media and the corporations lying so much, then everything begins — you don’t trust anything anymore, kind of like a child whose parents lie to them over and over again, well, pretty soon they don’t know what reality is,” he said in a 2019 deposition.
Earlier this month, Sandy Hook families sued Jones again in Texas, claiming that he was hiding millions of dollars in assets, including $18 million withdrawn from Infowars, as judges began to set damage amounts in the lawsuits.
“After Alex Jones was sued for claiming the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary was a hoax, the infamous conspiracy theorist conspired to divert his assets to shell companies owned by insiders like his parents, his children and himself,” the lawsuit reads.
Jones was fined $75,000 for skipping a recent deposition after claiming he was too sick to attend, but a judge ruled last week that he will be refunded that money because he eventually showed up.
