Alex Jones back on the hook for damages after bankruptcy choose sends Sandy Hook instances to Texas courtroom

NEWTOWN — A federal bankruptcy choose has launched extremist Alex Jones from Chapter 11 protection and sent his defamation circumstances again to state court docket in Texas, where the parents of two boys slain within the Sandy Hook massacre await jury trials to see how much Jones will have to pay them.

“(We) are relieved but not shocked that Mr. Jones’ latest stunt has failed like all the others,” mentioned Mark Bankston, an lawyer representing 4 dad and mom who gained two defamation cases towards Jones in Texas last year. “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 bankruptcy court where three Jones-controlled entities filed for Chapter 11 protection one week earlier than a jury trial was to begin to determine what damages Jones owed two mother and father he defamed when he called the worst crime in Connecticut historical past “staged,” “artificial,” “manufactured,” “a large hoax,” and “fully pretend with actors.”

The chapter judge’s ruling means the first postponed defamation awards trial in Texas may start as quickly as June, Bankston steered.

Among the disclosures that got here out of the chapter courtroom hearings is that Jones has suffered financially because the Sandy Hook defamation cases have progressed. Jones has spent not less than $10 million on legal charges and has lost no less than $20 million, his representatives stated in court docket. Jones didn't file for chapter safety himself, his consultant stated in courtroom, because he feared it might injury his model within the conspiracy principle market.

Meanwhile in Connecticut, the place an FBI agent and eight households who misplaced loved ones in the massacre of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary College also received a defamation case against Jones in 2021, a listening to was deliberate in Connecticut bankruptcy court on Tuesday that is anticipated to result in an analogous final result as the Texas circumstances.

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

Jones’ Chapter 11 filing put on maintain the two trials in Texas and the third deliberate in Connecticut, since federal court trumps state proceedings. Legal professionals for families right here and in Texas fought Jones’ Chapter 11 petitions as “dangerous faith” 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 combined month-to-month income of $38,000 whereas Jones himself made at least $76 million in 2019, his representatives mentioned in court docket.

In response, the families dropped Jones’ three business entities in chapter from their lawsuits. Because the families not had a stake in the bankruptcies, they argued, their lawsuits against Jones and Free Speech methods could be released back to the state courts for trial. The families argued that their target was Jones himself and Free Speech Programs, who weren't celebration to the bankruptcies.

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

It stays to be seen whether or not Connecticut chapter courtroom will rule similarly. The trial to award defamation damages to the Sandy Hook families in Connecticut had been scheduled for August.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342