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Alex Jones faces day of reckoning over what he owes Sandy Hook families (www.npr.org)

submitted 3 months ago by theangriestbird@beehaw.org to c/usnews@beehaw.org

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It’s a day of reckoning today for Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and a long-awaited culmination for the Sandy Hook families who sued Jones for defamation. A federal bankruptcy judge in Texas is expected to force Jones to liquidate his personal assets, including ownership of his media company, Free Speech Systems, in order to pay families nearly $1.5 billion in damages for spreading lies that the 2012 school shooting never happened.

Jones' influential Infowars show and website could be shut down by the end of the day, and his personal belongings — from his gun collection to his jewelry — could soon be auctioned to the highest bidder in something of a fire sale. He could even lose access to his account on X, where he currently has 2.3 million followers. However, Texas law allows him to keep his home, which is worth more than $2 million.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 3 points 3 months ago

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A federal bankruptcy judge in Texas is expected to force Jones to liquidate his personal assets, including ownership of his media company, Free Speech Systems, in order to pay families nearly $1.5 billion in damages for spreading lies that the 2012 school shooting never happened.

Jones' influential Infowars show and website could be shut down by the end of the day, and his personal belongings — from his gun collection to his jewelry — could soon be auctioned to the highest bidder in something of a fire sale.

Jones had told his followers that the family members were just actors, "fake crying" and "playing different parts of different people" as an elaborate plot meant to drum up support for gun control.

They were harassed online and in person, bombarded with death threats and relentlessly taunted by Jones' followers, who desecrated and threatened to dig up their loved ones' graves to prove it was all a hoax.

And the abuse that we have suffered over the last decade is just overwhelming," said Jen Hensel, whose daughter Avielle was killed at Sandy Hook, and whose husband, Jeremy Richman, later died by suicide after years of grieving.

Unlike most cases where bankruptcy wipes out debts and offers debtors a fresh start, the judge has ruled that Jones is not entitled to a clean slate because his wrongdoing was malicious and intentional.

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