The Associated Press reports that Alex Jones will not be able to use bankruptcy protections to avoid paying $1.1 billion out of the roughly $1.5 billion in damages he owes some of the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. Jones is facing multiple lawsuits in both Connecticut and his native Texas over defamatory claims he made about the shooting being a hoax, and now a judge in Texas has hit him with his most recent legal setback.
Jones declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year, but U.S. District Judge Christopher Lopez of Houston has declared that those protections will not apply to the damages against Jones due to the "willful and malicious" nature of his conduct. The only exception is the $322.5 million that families in Connecticut have been awarded for common-law punitive damages, meant to go towards legal expenses, CNN reports.
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Christopher Mattei, representing the Sandy Hook families in Connecticut, is understandably pleased with the ruling, issuing a press statement in favor of Jones being held accountable for his actions:
"The families are pleased with the Court's ruling that Jones's malicious conduct will find no safe harbor in the bankruptcy court. As a result, Jones will continue to be accountable for his actions into the future regardless of his claimed bankruptcy."
Jones himself reportedly responded to the ruling in a video on his Infowars site, claiming that he can't pay the rulings regardless of what a judge might say:
"It's all academic. I don't have a million dollars…My company has a few million, but that's just to pay the bills and my product in the future. So we are literally on empty. So this idea that … we're going to take your money away doesn't exist because the money doesn't exist. It's all political."
However, documents in Jones's own bankruptcy case show plenty of existent money being spent on meals and entertainment, with roughly $93,000 in personal spending for July of this year alone.
Jones owes about $1.5 billion to Sandy Hook families and will likely continue to owe more, as there is at least one more lawsuit connected to the case pending in Texas.
