Judge stops parents’ effort to collect on $50M Alex Jones owes for saying Newtown shooting was hoax
A federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday halted an effort by the parents of a boy killed in the slaying Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to start collecting some of the $50 million they won in a lawsuit against them conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for his false claims that the massacre was a hoax.
Lawyers for Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, whose six-year-old son Jesse Lewis was killed in the 2012 Connecticut shooting, had obtained an order from a Texas state judge earlier this month allowing them to begin collecting some of Jones’ assets company, Infowars. ‘ parental systems for free speech. That order came after the company’s bankruptcy reorganization failed and the case was dismissed.
But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said Thursday that the state judge’s ruling violates federal bankruptcy law.
Lopez said a new trustee appointed to oversee the liquidation of Jones’ personal assets now has control over Jones’ ownership in Free Speech Systems. Lopez said the trustee, Christopher Murray, has the authority under federal law to sell the company’s assets and distribute the proceeds equally to all of Jones’ creditors, including other family members of Sandy Hook victims who have been rewarded. more than $1.4 billion in a similar lawsuit in Connecticut over Jones’ lies about the shooting.
“I don’t think the state court was actually aware of any of these issues,” Lopez said.
Murray plans to close Infowarsthe billion-dollar moneymaker that Jones has built over the past 25 years by selling nutritional supplements, survival gear and other merchandise.
Jones has about $9 million in personal assets, according to the most recent financial filings with the court. According to recent court testimony, Free Speech Systems has approximately $6 million in cash and approximately $1.2 million in inventory on hand.
Bankruptcy attorneys for Jones and his company did not immediately return messages seeking comment Thursday. Jones said on his show Thursday that while Infowars may no longer exist in two to three months, he will restart his broadcasts on another platform that he will have to build from scratch. He also said that Lewis and Heslin’s attempts in Texas court to obtain some of his assets were “illegal.”
Murray had filed a motion on Sunday asking Lopez to halt Lewis and Heslin’s collection efforts in state court, saying they would interfere with the closure and liquidation of Jones’ company.
Free Speech Systems, based in Jones’ hometown of Austin, Texas, filed for bankruptcy reorganization in july 2022, in the middle of the trial in texas that led to the A $50 million reward for defamation to Lewis and Heslin. Jones has filed for personal bankruptcy reorganization later in 2022 after relatives of eight children and adults killed in the shooting won the lawsuit in Connecticut.
On June 14, Lopez converted Jones’ personal bankruptcy reorganization case into a liquidation, meaning many of his assets will be sold to pay creditors, except for his main home and other properties exempt from liquidation. On the same day, Lopez also dismissed Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy case after Jones and the families were unable to agree on a final plan.
The bankruptcies automatically freeze the Sandy Hook families’ efforts to collect state lawsuit awards. Lawyers for Lewis and Heslin said the dismissal of Free Speech System’s case meant they could go back to Texas state court in Austin and ask a judge to order the company to turn over money and other assets to Lewis and Heslin.
“Our clients are frustrated that they are not being allowed to exercise their rights in state court,” said Mark Bankston, an attorney for Lewis and Heslin. “Apparently, much to Mr. Jones’s delight, this case will remain in limbo while the other group of claimants insist they are entitled to almost the entire recovery.”
Lewis and Heslin disagree with relatives in the Connecticut lawsuit over how Jones’ bankruptcies should end and how his assets should be sold.
Relatives in the Connecticut lawsuit had fought the Free Speech Systems bankruptcy dismissal, saying it would lead to a “race” among Sandy Hook families to state courts in Texas and Connecticut to see who will be the first to sue Jones could get assets. The plaintiffs in Connecticut supported the administrator’s request to halt collection efforts in Texas.
“Connecticut families have always sought a fair and equitable distribution of Free Speech System assets for all families, and today’s decision puts us back on that path,” said Christopher Mattei, attorney for the Sandy Hook family members who sued Jones in Connecticut. .
Twenty first-graders and six teachers were killed in the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Not all of the victims’ families have sued Jones.
The family members said they were traumatized by Jones’ hoax conspiracies and the actions of his followers. They testified about being harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, some of whom personally confronted the grieving families, saying the shooting never happened and their children never existed. One parent said someone threatened to dig up his dead son’s grave.
Jones is appealing the verdicts in state courts. He has said he now believes the shooting happened, but free speech rights allowed him to say otherwise.