Alex Jones offers to pay Sandy Hook families just $55 million and 70 percent of profits from the sale of his personal property to settle $1.5 BILLION defamation bill after claiming school massacre was fake
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has offered to pay the families of Sandy Hook victims $55 million over 10 years – a fraction of the $1.5 billion awarded for falsely claiming the school shooting was staged .
Jones, 49, and his Austin-based company, Free Speech Systems, both filed for bankruptcy last year as the families were awarded more than $1.4 billion in a Connecticut lawsuit and another $50 million in a Texas lawsuit.
A third lawsuit, a similar one over Jones' hoax conspiracy, is pending in Texas, brought by the parents of another child killed in the school shooting.
The families are now focused on getting Jones to pay up.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is shown a photo of Judge Barbara Bellis with laser beams coming out of her eyes from his website during his testimony as Judge Bellis listens next to him, right, during the Sandy Hook defamation trial in September 2022. Jones is now trying to reduce the amount of compensation he had to pay
Jones appeared on Tucker Carlson's show earlier this month
Relatives of the deceased children are seen sobbing during the October 2022 trial
Families of the victims embrace their legal team on October 12, 2022
In November, they said he could either liquidate his estate and give the proceeds to the families or pay at least $8.5 million a year, plus 50 percent of all income above $9 million a year for 10 years.
Jones responded Friday in a filing filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston.
The deal will be discussed and challenged over the next two months, with hearings scheduled for February that will result in a final order setting how much Jones will have to pay.
Christopher Mattei, a Connecticut attorney for the Sandy Hook families, said Jones' proposal “falls woefully short” of providing everything the families are entitled to under bankruptcy laws.
“The families' plan is the only viable path to ensuring that Jones' assets are quickly distributed to those he has harassed for more than a decade,” Mattei said in a statement Saturday.
Jones' new proposal to settle with the families at least $5.5 million a year for 10 years does not appear to offer much more than what Free Speech Systems offered them in the bankruptcy case last month.
A memorial to the victims of Sandy Hook is pictured on December 16, 2012. Jones claimed that the shooting was faked by people who wanted to restrict America's right to own guns.
Police are seen outside Sandy Hook school on December 14, 2012, immediately after the shooting
Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Jones' Infowars show, proposed paying creditors about $4 million a year, down from an estimate earlier this year of $7 million to $10 million a year.
The company said it expects to earn about $19.2 million next year from sales of the nutritional supplements, apparel and other merchandise Jones promotes at his shows, while operating costs including salaries would be about $14.3 million.
Personally, Jones listed about $13 million in total assets in recent financial statements filed with bankruptcy court, including about $856,000 in various bank accounts.
A judge recently approved Jones to sell some of his assets, including guns, vehicles and jewelry, to raise money for creditors.
Jones is seen on October 4, 2022, after losing his defamation lawsuit
The conspiracy theorist and Infowars host (left) imagined that his wife, Erika Wulff Jones (right), could be owed even more damages pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the parents of 6-year-old Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner
Jones lists a $70,000 Dodge Charger and a $60,000 Chevy Tahoe among his assets in bankruptcy filings
The families' plan would set up a trust that would liquidate nearly all of Jones' assets except his primary home and other assets barred from sale under bankruptcy laws.
The trust would have sweeping powers, including the power to claw back money Jones paid and gave to others if those transfers were not authorized by law.
The families complain about Jones' personal expenses, which topped $90,000 a month this year.
They also have an ongoing lawsuit alleging that Jones hid millions of dollars in an attempt to protect his wealth. One of Jones' attorneys called the allegations “ridiculous.”
Jones is appealing the $1.5 billion in lawsuit awards to the families and has insisted that his comments about the shooting are protected by the right to free speech.