Alex Jones again on the hook for damages after bankruptcy choose sends Sandy Hook cases to Texas court

NEWTOWN — A federal bankruptcy decide has launched extremist Alex Jones from Chapter 11 protection and sent his defamation instances back to state court docket in Texas, the place the parents of two boys slain in the Sandy Hook massacre await jury trials to see how a lot Jones should pay them.

“(We) are relieved but not shocked that Mr. Jones’ newest stunt has failed like all of the others,” said Mark Bankston, an lawyer representing 4 parents who gained two defamation circumstances towards Jones in Texas last year. “Mr. Jones will now be held to account in a Travis County courtroom within the coming weeks, and these families will finally have the closure and recompense they deserve.”

Bankston was referring to a month-long saga in Texas bankruptcy courtroom the place three Jones-controlled entities filed for Chapter 11 protection one week before a jury trial was to begin to find out what damages Jones owed two mother and father he defamed when he called the worst crime in Connecticut history “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “an enormous hoax,” and “completely faux with actors.”

The bankruptcy decide’s ruling means the first postponed defamation awards trial in Texas might start as quickly as June, Bankston steered.

Among the disclosures that got here out of the chapter court hearings is that Jones has suffered financially because the Sandy Hook defamation instances have progressed. Jones has spent not less than $10 million on authorized charges and has misplaced not less than $20 million, his representatives said in courtroom. Jones did not file for chapter safety himself, his representative mentioned in courtroom, because he feared it will damage his brand within the conspiracy idea market.

In the meantime in Connecticut, where an FBI agent and eight households who misplaced loved ones in the massacre of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty also won a defamation case towards Jones in 2021, a listening to was planned in Connecticut bankruptcy courtroom on Tuesday that's expected to end in an identical final result because the Texas cases.

The rationale has to do with a maneuver the Sandy Hook households took here and in Texas to outflank Jones in chapter court.

Jones’ Chapter 11 filing put on maintain the two trials in Texas and the third planned in Connecticut, since federal court trumps state proceedings. Lawyers for families here and in Texas fought Jones’ Chapter 11 petitions as “dangerous religion” filings, since Jones himself and his money-making Free Speech techniques did not file for chapter. The three Jones-controlled entities that sought Chapter 11 protection have a mixed month-to-month income of $38,000 while Jones himself made not less than $76 million in 2019, his representatives said in court.

In response, the households dropped Jones’ three business entities in chapter from their lawsuits. As a result of the families not had a stake within the bankruptcies, they argued, their lawsuits against Jones and Free Speech programs could be released back to the state courts for trial. The households argued that their target was Jones himself and Free Speech Programs, who were not celebration to the bankruptcies.

In rulings on Thursday and Friday, the federal chapter court docket in Texas agreed.

It remains to be seen whether Connecticut bankruptcy courtroom will rule equally. The trial to award defamation damages to the Sandy Hook families in Connecticut had been scheduled for August.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342