Criminal Alex Jones Files for Bankruptcy

Trying to shirk the families he hurt.

The Infowars broadcaster has been ordered by courts to pay about $1.5 billion in damages to Sandy Hook families hurt by his promotion of conspiracy theories.

The Infowars fabulist Alex Jones filed for Chapter 11 personal bankruptcy on Friday, citing nearly $1.5 billion in damages juries awarded this year to the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims, who won a series of defamation cases against Mr. Jones after he lied for years about the school shooting.

The filing in the Southern District of Texas in Houston comes atop the bankruptcy filing by Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, in late July. The personal bankruptcy filing could further delay payment of the verdicts for the families, who would need to seek payment through the bankruptcy courts alongside other creditors. But it could also force a greater degree of scrutiny on the finances of Mr. Jones’s empire.

However, a report from the Washington Post published earlier this fall indicated that Jones may be moving money around in a manner designed to exaggerate his purported poverty and avoid paying out the money owed to the Sandy Hook families.

For more than four years of the Sandy Hook litigation, Mr. Jones has stonewalled the courts on providing business records, financial information and other records. In a separate lawsuit, the Sandy Hook families have accused Mr. Jones of improperly siphoning assets from his business and channeling them to himself and his family. He will now ostensibly be required to reveal more about those assets.

"As the potential for damages mounted, Jones began moving millions of dollars out of his company, Free Speech Systems, and into companies controlled by himself, friends or relatives," the paper reports. "The transfers potentially put those funds out of reach of the Sandy Hook plaintiffs."

Among other things, the Post found that Jones "started paying his personal trainer $100,000 a week to help ship supplements and other merchandise" and that "a company managed by Jones’s sister and listed as a 'supplier or vendor' was paid $240,000" for its services.