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

NEWTOWN — A federal bankruptcy judge has launched extremist Alex Jones from Chapter 11 safety and despatched his defamation cases again to state court docket in Texas, the place the parents of two boys slain within the Sandy Hook bloodbath await jury trials to see how much Jones should pay them.

“(We) are relieved however not surprised that Mr. Jones’ latest stunt has failed like all of the others,” stated Mark Bankston, an lawyer representing four parents who won two defamation cases towards Jones in Texas last 12 months. “Mr. Jones will now be held to account in a Travis County courtroom in the coming weeks, and these families will lastly have the closure and recompense they deserve.”

Bankston was referring to a month-long saga in Texas chapter court where three Jones-controlled entities filed for Chapter 11 safety one week before a jury trial was to begin to determine what damages Jones owed two mother and father he defamed when he referred to as the worst crime in Connecticut historical past “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely faux with actors.”

The bankruptcy judge’s ruling means the first postponed defamation awards trial in Texas could start as quickly as June, Bankston recommended.

Among the many disclosures that got here out of the bankruptcy court docket hearings is that Jones has suffered financially because the Sandy Hook defamation circumstances have progressed. Jones has spent at the least $10 million on authorized fees and has lost a minimum of $20 million, his representatives said in courtroom. Jones didn't file for chapter protection himself, his consultant said in court, because he feared it would injury his model in the conspiracy principle market.

In the meantime in Connecticut, the place an FBI agent and eight households who misplaced family members in the massacre of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty additionally gained a defamation case towards Jones in 2021, a listening to was deliberate in Connecticut bankruptcy court on Tuesday that's anticipated to lead to an analogous end result because the Texas cases.

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

Jones’ Chapter 11 submitting placed on hold the two trials in Texas and the third planned in Connecticut, since federal court trumps state proceedings. Legal professionals for families right here and in Texas fought Jones’ Chapter 11 petitions as “unhealthy religion” filings, since Jones himself and his money-making Free Speech programs did not file for bankruptcy. The three Jones-controlled entities that sought Chapter 11 safety have a mixed monthly income of $38,000 whereas Jones himself made at the least $76 million in 2019, his representatives said in court docket.

In response, the families dropped Jones’ three business entities in bankruptcy from their lawsuits. Because the households not had a stake in the bankruptcies, they argued, their lawsuits towards Jones and Free Speech techniques could possibly be released back to the state courts for trial. The families argued that their target was Jones himself and Free Speech Methods, who were not social gathering to the bankruptcies.

In rulings on Thursday and Friday, the federal bankruptcy courtroom in Texas agreed.

It stays to be seen whether Connecticut chapter court docket will rule equally. The trial to award defamation damages to the Sandy Hook households in Connecticut had been scheduled for August.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342