Infowars host files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Alex Jones filed for personal bankruptcy in Texas on Friday, according to a court filing.

Why it matters: The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing comes after Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, were ordered to pay almost $1.5 billion in damages for falsely claiming the Sandy Hook mass shooting was a hoax.

Driving the news: The bankruptcy filing said Jones owns between $1 million and $10 million of assets with $1 billion to $10 billion of liabilities.

• Jones’ affiliate business Free Speech Systems is also mentioned in the lawsuit, having filed for bankruptcy in July.

What they’re saying: “Like every other cowardly move Alex Jones has made, this bankruptcy will not work,” said Chris Mattei, the attorney representing the Sandy Hook families, in a statement to Axios.

• “The bankruptcy system does not protect anyone who engages in intentional and egregious attacks on others, as Mr. Jones did. The American judicial system will hold Alex Jones accountable, and we will never stop working to enforce the jury’s verdict.”

Zoom out: A Connecticut jury ordered Jones to pay $965 million in damages to Sandy Hook victims in a defamation lawsuit back in October, per Axios.

• In mid-November, a judge ordered Jones to pay an additional $473 million in damages for making false statements that the shooting was a hoax.

Context: Jones claimed that the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was staged as a way for the government to take control of Americans’ guns, jones-files-bankruptcy-following-sandy-hook-verdict-court-filing-2022-12-02/”>Reuters reports.

Editor’s note: This story was updated with a statement from the Sandy Hook families’ attorney.

More from Axios:

Elon Musk won’t let Alex Jones back on Twitter

The ongoing legal troubles of Alex Jones