The host of Infowars – an American website that spreads conspiracy theories and false news -, Alex Jones, asked Friday in Texas to be declared personal bankruptcy, facing the payment of almost 1,500 million dollars to which he was sentenced a Connecticut court for spreading conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
Jones filed for bankruptcy in court in Houston. His filing says he owes between $1 billion and $10 billion to between 50 and 99 creditors and that his assets total between $1 million and $10 million.
Jones must pay $1.5 billion in damages to the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre for saying it was all a hoax. A lawyer for Jones in the bankruptcy case did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Connecticut jury in October awarded the family members $965 million in damages and a judge later added $473 million in punitive damages. Months earlier, a jury in Texas awarded $49 million to the parents of a child killed in the massacre.
The bankruptcy filing momentarily halted all proceedings in the Connecticut case and forced a judge to cancel a hearing scheduled for Friday morning on the Sandy Hook families’ request to enclose the assets of Jones and his company to secure the payment of almost 1,400 million dollars in compensation.
Chris Mattei, attorney for the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut case, said Friday that “this bankruptcy will not work. Bankruptcy law does not protect anyone who makes willful and flagrant attacks on others, as Mr. Jones did. The American judicial system will hold Alex Jones accountable, and we will never stop working to enforce the jury’s verdict.”
In the Texas and Connecticut cases, family members of the 20 students and six adults killed in the massacre testified that they received threats and harassment for years from people who believed Jones’ lies. One father said some conspiracy theorists urinated on his son’s grave and threatened to dig up the coffin.
Erica Lafferty, the daughter of school principal Dawn Hochsprung, who was killed, said she received rape threats in the mail.