Alex Jones back on the hook for damages after bankruptcy choose sends Sandy Hook circumstances to Texas court docket

NEWTOWN — A federal bankruptcy choose has launched extremist Alex Jones from Chapter 11 safety and despatched his defamation circumstances back to state courtroom in Texas, where the parents of two boys slain in the Sandy Hook bloodbath await jury trials to see how a lot Jones should pay them.

“(We) are relieved but not stunned that Mr. Jones’ newest stunt has failed like all of the others,” said Mark Bankston, an lawyer representing four parents who gained two defamation instances towards Jones in Texas final year. “Mr. Jones will now be held to account in a Travis County courtroom within the coming weeks, and these families will finally have the closure and recompense they deserve.”

Bankston was referring to a month-long saga in Texas bankruptcy courtroom the place three Jones-controlled entities filed for Chapter 11 safety one week earlier than a jury trial was to start to find out what damages Jones owed two mother and father he defamed when he called the worst crime in Connecticut history “staged,” “artificial,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “fully fake with actors.”

The chapter decide’s ruling means the first postponed defamation awards trial in Texas might begin as soon as June, Bankston recommended.

Among the many disclosures that came out of the chapter court docket hearings is that Jones has suffered financially because the Sandy Hook defamation cases have progressed. Jones has spent at the least $10 million on legal charges and has lost at least $20 million, his representatives mentioned in court. Jones did not file for chapter safety himself, his representative stated in court docket, because he feared it could injury his model within the conspiracy concept market.

Meanwhile in Connecticut, where an FBI agent and eight families who lost loved ones in the massacre of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School also gained a defamation case against Jones in 2021, a hearing was deliberate in Connecticut bankruptcy court docket on Tuesday that is anticipated to end in the same consequence as the Texas instances.

The rationale has to do with a maneuver the Sandy Hook households took right here and in Texas to outflank Jones in chapter courtroom.

Jones’ Chapter 11 filing placed on maintain the two trials in Texas and the third planned in Connecticut, since federal court trumps state proceedings. Lawyers for families here and in Texas fought Jones’ Chapter 11 petitions as “dangerous faith” filings, since Jones himself and his money-making Free Speech techniques did not file for chapter. The three Jones-controlled entities that sought Chapter 11 protection have a mixed month-to-month income of $38,000 whereas Jones himself made a minimum of $76 million in 2019, his representatives stated in courtroom.

In response, the families dropped Jones’ three enterprise entities in chapter from their lawsuits. As a result of the households no longer had a stake within the bankruptcies, they argued, their lawsuits towards Jones and Free Speech techniques could possibly be released back to the state courts for trial. The households argued that their goal was Jones himself and Free Speech Programs, who weren't social gathering to the bankruptcies.

In rulings on Thursday and Friday, the federal chapter court docket in Texas agreed.

It remains to be seen whether Connecticut chapter courtroom will rule equally. The trial to award defamation damages to the Sandy Hook families in Connecticut had been scheduled for August.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342