Judge Orders Liquidation of Infowars to Pay Sandy Hook Families

New York Times

13 hours ago

It may finally be the end of the line for Infowars.
A Texas judge on Wednesday ordered that all assets from the website, founded and operated by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, be turned over to a court-ordered receiver. That person would then sell them to help pay 10 families who lost children in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.
The families were awarded over $1.4 billion in damages in 2022 after they sued Mr. Jones for defamation. He had claimed for years that the shooting, in which 20 first graders and six educators died, was a hoax, and that family members of the victims were actors in a plot to enact extreme gun control legislation.
The ruling instructs the receiver to take possession of Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, within a matter of days, and to seize the company's physical equipment, like mixing boards and microphones, as well as its intellectual property.
'Today's order brings us a critically important step closer to achieving the goal that the Connecticut families have spent years fighting for: holding Alex Jones accountable for years of harm,' Christopher Mattei, one of the lawyers for the families, said in a statement.
A lawyer for Mr. Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The families of victims faced a number of legal setbacks as they tried to collect the money that Mr. Jones owed them.
For years, Mr. Jones stonewalled the courts on providing financial documents during cases against him, and in 2022, both he and Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy.
Last year, a bankruptcy judge ordered that assets from Infowars be sold to pay the families. The Onion, a satirical website, won an auction to acquire Infowars, saying it wanted to turn the site into a satirical platform that would ridicule the kind of conspiracy theories that Mr. Jones has spread.
But in December, a judge rejected the sale, saying that the auction didn't maximize the amount of money it would provide to Mr. Jones's creditors. Instead, the judge suggested the families pursue their case in state court. The ruling on Wednesday, from a state court in Texas, came as part of a continuation of their efforts.
'The receiver is now authorized to liquidate his business assets,' Mr. Mattei said. 'We look forward to the corrupt media empire that Jones built finally being dismantled.'