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

NEWTOWN — A federal bankruptcy choose has launched extremist Alex Jones from Chapter 11 safety and despatched his defamation cases again to state courtroom in Texas, where the parents of two boys slain within the Sandy Hook massacre await jury trials to see how a lot Jones should pay them.

“(We) are relieved however not surprised that Mr. Jones’ latest stunt has failed like all of the others,” mentioned Mark Bankston, an lawyer representing 4 dad and mom who received two defamation circumstances against Jones in Texas last 12 months. “Mr. Jones will now be held to account in a Travis County courtroom within the coming weeks, and these households 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 start to find out what damages Jones owed two dad and mom he defamed when he known as the worst crime in Connecticut history “staged,” “artificial,” “manufactured,” “an enormous hoax,” and “utterly fake with actors.”

The bankruptcy choose’s ruling means the first postponed defamation awards trial in Texas may start as quickly as June, Bankston suggested.

Among the disclosures that came out of the chapter courtroom hearings is that Jones has suffered financially because the Sandy Hook defamation cases have progressed. Jones has spent a minimum of $10 million on legal charges and has lost at the very least $20 million, his representatives stated in court docket. Jones didn't file for bankruptcy protection himself, his representative said in court, because he feared it will harm his brand in the conspiracy principle market.

Meanwhile in Connecticut, the place an FBI agent and eight families who misplaced loved ones within the massacre of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty additionally received a defamation case in opposition to Jones in 2021, a listening to was planned in Connecticut bankruptcy court docket on Tuesday that's anticipated to end in an identical final result because the Texas cases.

The reason has to do with a maneuver the Sandy Hook families took here and in Texas to outflank Jones in chapter courtroom.

Jones’ Chapter 11 filing put on maintain the two trials in Texas and the third deliberate in Connecticut, since federal court docket trumps state proceedings. Attorneys for households right here and in Texas fought Jones’ Chapter 11 petitions as “bad faith” filings, since Jones himself and his money-making Free Speech methods didn't file for bankruptcy. The three Jones-controlled entities that sought Chapter 11 protection have a combined month-to-month income of $38,000 whereas Jones himself made no less than $76 million in 2019, his representatives said in court.

In response, the families dropped Jones’ three business entities in bankruptcy from their lawsuits. As a result of the families not had a stake within the bankruptcies, they argued, their lawsuits in opposition to Jones and Free Speech systems could possibly be launched again to the state courts for trial. The families argued that their goal was Jones himself and Free Speech Techniques, who were not occasion to the bankruptcies.

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

It stays to be seen whether or not Connecticut chapter courtroom 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