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Alex Jones ordered to liquidate assets to pay for Sandy Hook conspiracy suit
A federal judge on Friday ordered the liquidation of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones′ personal assets and was still deciding on his company’s separate bankruptcy case. The decision could determine the future of his Infowars media platform, as Jones owes $1.5 billion for his false claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax.
Judge Christopher Lopez approved converting Jones’ proposed personal bankruptcy reorganization to a liquidation. He was still set to rule on whether Jones’ company, Austin, Texas-based Free Speech Systems, also should be liquidated.
Many of Jones’ personal assets will be sold off, but he is expected to keep his primary home in the Austin area and some other belongings that are exempt from bankruptcy liquidation. He already has moved to sell his Texas ranch worth about $2.8 million, a gun collection and other assets to help pay debts.
Jones did not have any real reaction after the judge issued the order about his personal assets. CBS affiliate KHOU reported that every seat in the gallery was filled when the hearing began this morning.
Jones has been telling his web viewers and radio listeners that Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, is on the verge of being shut down because of the bankruptcy. A headline on Infowars’ website Friday said: “Watch Live! Will This Be The Final Day Of Infowars Transmissions?”
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“This is probably the end of Infowars here very, very soon. If not today, in the next few weeks or months,” Jones told reporters before the hearing began. “But it’s just the beginning of my fight against tyranny.”
Jones has been urging his followers to download videos from his online archive to preserve them and pointing them to a new website of his father’s company if they want to continue buying the dietary supplements he sells on his show.
Jones and Austin, Texas-based Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022, when relatives of many victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, won lawsuit judgments of more than $1.4 billion in Connecticut and $49 million in Texas.
Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families have been seeking liquidation.
“Doing so will enable the Connecticut families to enforce their $1.4 billion in judgments now and into the future while also depriving Jones of the ability to inflict mass harm as he has done for some 25 years,” Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the families in the Connecticut case, said.
The relatives said they were traumatized by Jones’ comments and his followers’ actions. They testified about being harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, some of whom confronted the grieving families in person saying the shooting never happened and their children never existed. One parent said someone threatened to dig up his dead son’s grave.
Jones and Free Speech Systems initially filed for bankruptcy reorganization protection that would have allowed him to run Infowars while paying the families with revenues from his show. But the two sides couldn’t agree on a final plan, and Jones recently filed for permission to switch his personal bankruptcy from a reorganization to a liquidation.
The families in the Connecticut lawsuit, including relatives of eight dead children and adults, have asked that Free Speech Systems’ separate bankruptcy case also be converted to a liquidation. But the parents in the Texas suit — whose child, 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, died — want the company’s case dismissed.
Lawyers for the company filed documents indicating it supported liquidation, but attorneys for Jones’ personal bankruptcy case filed a motion Wednesday saying he does not support that plan and wants the judge to dismiss the company’s case.
If Free Speech Systems’ case is dismissed, the company could return to the same position it was in after the $1.5 billion was awarded in the lawsuits. Efforts to collect the damages would go back to the state courts in Texas and Connecticut. That could give Infowars an extended lifeline as collection efforts played out.
Although he has since acknowledged that the Sandy Hook shooting happened, Jones has been saying on his recent shows that Democrats and the “deep state” are conspiring to shut down his companies and take away his free speech rights because of his views. He also has said the Sandy Hook families are being used as pawns in the conspiracy. The families’ lawyers say that is nonsense.
According to the most recent financial statements filed in the bankruptcy court, Jones personally has about $9 million in assets, including his $2.6 million Austin-area home and other real estate. He listed his living expenses at about $69,000 for April alone, including about $16,500 for expenses on his home.
Free Speech Systems, which employs 44 people, made nearly $3.2 million in April, including from selling the dietary supplements, clothing and other items that Jones promotes on his show, while listing $1.9 million in expenses.
The families have a pending lawsuit in Texas accusing Jones of illegally diverting and hiding millions of dollars. Jones has denied the allegations.
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An Orange County, California, jury found 26-year-old Sam Woodward guilty of first-degree murder with a hate crime enhancement Wednesday for the 2018 death of Blaze Bernstein, whose body was found days after he went missing, buried in a shallow grave at a Lake Forest park.
The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for just one day.
The judge hushed the courtroom as applause was heard during the reading of the verdict.
The prosecution had argued for Woodward to be found guilty of first-degree murder as a hate crime. Defense attorneys argued that Woodward should be convicted for voluntary manslaughter and acquitted of hate-crime allegations.
Jurors also were asked to consider second-degree murder. Closing arguments in the case had begun Friday, two-and-a-half months after the trial began in Santa Ana.
Following the reading of the guilty verdict, Bernstein’s parents shared their gratitude to the jury, to law enforcement and to the “army of supporters and volunteers” who were with them through the six-and-a-half-year ordeal.
“This was a great relief that justice was served and this despicable human, who murdered our son, will no longer be a threat to the public,” his mother Jeanne Pepper Bernstein said. “We are grateful to the jury for their service and their long days and weeks they spent in that service. Justice has been served.”
Sam Woodward was charged with stabbing Bernstein to death a little over six years ago. The Newport Beach man admitted to stabbing Bernstein, a 19-year-old gay, Jewish man, multiple times in 2018, but pleaded not guilty to murder with an enhancement for a hate crime.
Orange County prosecutor Jennifer Walker maintained to jurors that Woodward stabbed Bernstein, his former high school classmate, because he was gay, and buried his body at Borrego Park in Lake Forest.
“To dig a grave in that terrain, and bury and clean up and murder someone in an hour and half..that is not someone who is just going, ‘Oh..something happened and I need to figure it out.’ That is determined,” Walker said.
Bernstein, who was a college sophomore, was home visiting his family on winter break in January 2018 when he went missing after going with Woodward to a park in Lake Forest, California. Woodward picked Bernstein up from his parents’ home after connecting with him on social media.
Bernstein’s parents found his glasses, wallet and credit cards in his bedroom the next day when he missed a dentist appointment and wasn’t responding to texts or calls, prosecutors wrote in a trial brief.
Days later, Bernstein’s body was found buried at the park in a shallow grave.
The case took years to go to trial after questions were raised about Woodward’s mental state and following defense attorney changes. Woodward was deemed competent to stand trial in late 2022.
Woodward took the stand for several days and confessed to jurors that he stabbed Bernstein multiple times.
DNA evidence linked Woodward to the killing and his cellphone contained troves of anti-gay, antisemitic and hate group materials, authorities said.
“Now with the verdict in hand, we believe justice has been served and that Blaze’s memory will be honored through this outcome,” Pepper Bernstein said.
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