Infowars, a media company owned by well-known radio host Alex Jones, has filed for bankruptcy after it was hit with several defamation lawsuits related to the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut.
The company filed for voluntary Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. This will give Infowars some time to restructure debts. It has listed liabilities in the range of $1 million to $10 million with assets worth up to $50,000.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy procedures will put the defamation lawsuits on hold. In addition to Infowars, two more companies owned by Jones—Infowars Health and Prison Planet TV—have also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Jones’s lawyers have set up a trust to settle the legal claims that arise as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. Breitbart reported that he handed over $725,000 to the trust to cover the cost of the process.
Last year, Jones and his companies were deemed to be liable in a defamation lawsuit filed by relatives of some of the 20 children and six educators who were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
On his radio show, Jones claimed the massacre was a hoax perpetrated by advocates of gun control and the mainstream media, a theory that began circulating online in the days and weeks after the shooting. That allegedly resulted in Jones’s followers harassing the relatives of the victims, who subsequently filed the defamation lawsuit.
Lawyers representing Jones argued that the defamation lawsuit was filed to curtail free speech in matters of public interest. Jones has said repeatedly in recent years that the shooting did take place.
A judge will decide in August how much Jones should pay the relatives. Similar defamation lawsuits were filed by relatives of victims from Texas, the trial for which will begin this month, CBS News reported.
“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,” said Christopher Mattei, who represents the families in a Connecticut lawsuit against Jones, according to The Associated Press.
In March 2022, Jones was held in contempt by a court in Connecticut after he failed to comply with multiple orders to sit for a deposition in a defamation suit.
“The court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant Alex Jones willfully and in bad faith violated without justification several clear court orders requiring his attendance at his depositions on March 23 and March 24,” Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis said at the time.
Jones was forced to pay $75,000 in fines due to the issue. However, the money was later returned after he complied with the order.
In March, Jones offered a sum of $120,000 to each of the 13 plaintiffs in the defamation case. However, the families rejected the offer.
In a court document, the families called the offer a “transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs and the memory of their loved ones lost at Sandy Hook.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
