hook families
Connecticut attorneys weigh in on Alex Jones bankruptcy
Jones has been ordered to pay about $1.5 billion to the families of Sandy Hook victims.
HARTFORD, Conn. — Alex Jones, the controversial host of Infowars, filed for bankruptcy protection Friday.
He claims he’s out of money and owes creditors millions, but he’s chauffeured around by private bodyguards in big new expensive vehicles, still selling his supplements, asking his fans to donate to his legal defense fund and encouraging them to give him cryptocurrency.
“All those people who are giving him money, they are working for the plaintiffs. They’re not working for him,” said Jim Bergenn, an Attorney for Shipman & Goodwin. Prior to personal bankruptcy filing, his company, Free Speech Systems, also filed for bankruptcy in April. “For the rest of his life he can never accumulate wealth,” said Bergenn.
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In total, Jones has been ordered to pay about $1.5-billion to Sandy Hook families after being found liable for defamation for claiming the school massacre was a hoax and the victim’s families were actors. “All they want is some billion-dollar number. This is ridiculous. I don’t have two million dollars,” said Jones of his Infowars show.
And
Alex Jones arms for verdict fight with Sandy Hook parents
Alex Jones is not rushing into bankruptcy protection after a Connecticut jury ordered him to pay $965 million in defamation damages to eight Sandy Hook families last week, his attorney said on Monday.
“[T]here is simply no need for a bankruptcy filing until the appellate courts have handled these cases on appeal,” said Jones’ bankruptcy attorney Shelby Jordan, speaking not only of the eye-opening Connecticut verdict but the $49 million a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay in August to parents of a slain Sandy Hook boy Jones defamed. “Keep in mind that these judgments were obtained by barring almost all defensive testimony to the damage claims made and in particular allowing the jury to hear only one side of that evidence.”
The first post-verdict fight will come on Thursday where Jones will ask a Texas judge to apply the state law’s $750,000 limit on punitive damages in civil cases, and deny a claim by the Sandy Hook parents that they are exempt from the cap because of their severe emotional suffering.
The two sides couldn’t be further apart.
The parents of the slain Sandy Hook boy argue they’re entitled to the $45 million in punitive damages the jury awarded
Alex Jones using bankruptcy to avoid payouts, Sandy Hook families allege
Sandy Hook families have asked a federal judge to remove InfoWars founder Alex Jones from control of his main company, alleging that Jones has siphoned off millions of dollars and is abusing the bankruptcy system to avoid paying court judgments for portraying the 2012 school shooting as a hoax.
Jones placed Free Speech Systems into bankruptcy in late July while he was in the middle of an Austin trial that ended with jurors awarding almost $50 million to the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, one of 20 children and six educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Sued by other Sandy Hook families, Jones and Free Speech Systems are facing a similar trial this month in Connecticut and another trial later this year in Austin.
With potentially large jury awards looming, bankruptcy proceedings for Free Speech Systems — which reported $9.4 million in profits on $14.3 million in income in the first five months of this year — could determine how much money the Sandy Hook families receive, as well as the continued viability of Jones’ Austin-based InfoWars media system.
Lawyers for the Sandy Hook parents recently told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez that they don’t trust
Jury selection begins Thursday in Alex Jones’ CT Sandy Hook trial
NEWTOWN — Just days after a Texas jury decided Alex Jones should pay $49.2 million in defamation damages to parents of a slain Sandy Hook boy, a new trial for other families Jones defamed will begin in Waterbury on Thursday with jury selection.
News that jury selection will begin in a trial that will determine how much Jones should pay eight Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent he defamed comes one day after a federal judge in Bridgeport stripped Jones of protection he was seeking when he put the parent company of his conspiracy merchandising platform Infowars into bankruptcy.
At stake is the future of Jones as the face of America’s conspiracy community and the fate of 15 people Jones defamed when he called the 2012 shooting of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely fake with actors.”
“I am looking forward to taking this to the jury,” said Norm Pattis, a high-profile New Haven attorney who is running Jones’ defense in Connecticut. “We have heard what the plaintiff’s have had to say about this case ad nauseam, and now we want to hear what the jury says.”