The judge overseeing Alex Jones’ bankruptcy case threw him a lifeline on Monday, saying he could continue operating his media company over the next fortnight before the decision is made on whether it should be liquidated.
Jones has been ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School after they won lawsuits in Texas and Connecticut claiming he’d defamed and caused them emotional distress. A virulent conspiracy theorist, Jones spent years spreading lies about the 2012 mass killing, including that it was a hoax.
Kicking the can down the road, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said on Monday in Houston that Jones’ media empire would not be shut down before a June 14 hearing in which the question of whether his assets should be liquidated is addressed.
Until then, Lopez ruled, Free Speech Systems, Jones’ company, will be allowed to continue to pay its 44 employees and other expenses, according to the Associated Press.
Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2022, two months after the Connecticut and Texas judgments were handed down. Free Speech Systems had declared bankruptcy five months earlier. Late the next year, he and the Sandy Hook families swapped dueling settlement plans without success, with the families saying Jones’ proposal fell “woefully short.”
On Sunday, the families filed an emergency motion pointing out that Free Speech Systems has “failed to demonstrate any hope of beginning to satisfy” their claims. The motion asked the court to shift the case from a Chapter 11 proceeding, which involves reorganization and restructuring, to a Chapter 7 proceeding, which involves liquidation.
The motion was filed amid several “emergency broadcasts” taped by Jones over the weekend, who, red-faced, railed about the bankruptcy case and burst into tears while claiming that the “deep state” was coming to shut Infowars down imminently.
“All we’re trying to do is save America, and they’re fucking us over, over and over again,” he sobbed on his Saturday show. “And it’s just so sick—it’s sick, it’s sick. I want to leave—because it’s going to be over, folks.”
On Sunday: “There’s really no avenue out of this. I’m kind of in the bunker here. And don’t worry. I’ll come back. The enemy can’t help but do this attack.”
And on Monday, while insisting that his meltdown had not been a “publicity stunt,” Jones begged listeners to keep buying his dietary supplements.
In court on Monday, a lawyer for the families, Christopher Mattei, claimed Jones was “manufacturing a crisis” about the threat of a shutdown, according to the AP.
There is currently no plan in place for how Jones might be forced to go about liquidating his assets to address his outstanding legal debts. Late last month, he was granted permission to sell off his $2.8 million game ranch in Kingsbury, according to the Texas news outlet Chron.
Once the 127-acre property has been sold, Jones will not have direct access to the funds, which will be held in trust and used to pay for his legal expenses. Any leftover capital will go to his creditors, including the Sandy Hook families.
Including the ranch, Jones personally has about $9 million in assets, according to his most recent financial statements filed in the bankruptcy case. Free Speech Systems had nearly $4 million in cash on hand at the end of April, according to the Associated Press.
The June 14 court date set by Lopez is to hear arguments from both sides as to how the case should be resolved. The case is expected to either be ordered to liquidation or withdrawn at that point. If withdrawn, it would send the matter back down to the state courts, which rendered the Connecticut and Texas verdicts, the AP reported.
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