Alex Jones shouldn’t expect bankruptcy to cover his sins
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I was talking with friends the other day about Alex Jones and his recent personal bankruptcy filing.
This was done after a jury and a judge awarded damages against Jones for a total of over $1.4 billion in connection with Jones’ statements about the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Sandy Hook is a town in Connecticut where a gunman went to a school and killed 26 people, including 20 elementary school children and six staff members. After the massacre, Jones spread disproven, debunked conspiracy theories including that no one died there and that the incident was “staged” or manufactured with actors.
This caused a number of lawsuits against Jones and his companies for defamation and other claims. The plaintiffs included parents, one of whom committed suicide. In addition to the incredible loss of their children, these parents were subjected to the humiliation of hearing someone deny their horrid losses, accusations of nefarious conduct, death and other threats of violence, and any number of awful things that we may never know fully. Jones refused to cooperate in the litigation. The court eventually entered a default against him for this failure, which is quite rare but happens when parties fail to cooperate long enough. Jones pushed the court to its limit in his failure to abide by civil procedure rules.
After the default judgment was entered, the court held a trial on damages for him to pay. There is a lot here, but I see a jury award of $965 million to be shared by 15 plaintiffs (eight families and one first responder) and a judicial award of $473 million in punitive damages. During this process, Jones continued in his lack of respect for and cooperation with the legal proceedings. He also hid assets and might have transferred them to avoid the plaintiffs’ claims.
Content retrieved from: https://www.hollandsentinel.com/story/opinion/columns/2022/12/27/marcia-meoli-alex-jones-shouldnt-expect-bankruptcy-to-cover-his-sins/69756849007/.
