sandy hook

Alex Jones arms for verdict fight with Sandy Hook parents

Alex Jones is not rushing into bankruptcy protection after a Connecticut jury ordered him to pay $965 million in defamation damages to eight Sandy Hook families last week, his attorney said on Monday.

“[T]here is simply no need for a bankruptcy filing until the appellate courts have handled these cases on appeal,” said Jones’ bankruptcy attorney Shelby Jordan, speaking not only of the eye-opening Connecticut verdict but the $49 million a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay in August to parents of a slain Sandy Hook boy Jones defamed. “Keep in mind that these judgments were obtained by barring almost all defensive testimony to the damage claims made and in particular allowing the jury to hear only one side of that evidence.”

The first post-verdict fight will come on Thursday where Jones will ask a Texas judge to apply the state law’s $750,000 limit on punitive damages in civil cases, and deny a claim by the Sandy Hook parents that they are exempt from the cap because of their severe emotional suffering.

The two sides couldn’t be further apart.

The parents of the slain Sandy Hook boy argue they’re entitled to the $45 million in punitive damages the jury awarded

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October 20, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Infowars lawyer, manager barred from bankruptcy case over conflicts

Alex Jones attempts to answer questions about his emails asked by Mark Bankston, lawyer for Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, during trial at the Travis County Courthouse, Austin, Texas, U.S., August 3, 2022. Briana Sanchez/Pool via REUTERS

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(Reuters) – A U.S. bankruptcy judge on Tuesday blocked a restructuring executive and an attorney from working for Infowars’ bankrupt parent company over a conflict of interest, potentially throwing the bankruptcy case and the company’s daily operations into disarray.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston found that Marc Schwartz, chief restructuring officer of Infowars parent Free Speech Systems LLC, and attorney Kyung Lee failed to disclose that they sought work from Free Speech Systems before the conclusion of earlier Infowars bankruptcies.

The judge raised the conflicts issue because he presided over the earlier Infowars bankruptcies and was concerned about the apparent overlap of work. The judge said the two men showed a “lack of candor” regarding the overlap and other matters. The judge also said the problem was compounded by Schwartz’s tendency to defer to Alex Jones and his other companies instead of advocating on behalf of FSS alone.

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September 26, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Alex Jones using bankruptcy to avoid payouts, Sandy Hook families allege

Sandy Hook families have asked a federal judge to remove InfoWars founder Alex Jones from control of his main company, alleging that Jones has siphoned off millions of dollars and is abusing the bankruptcy system to avoid paying court judgments for portraying the 2012 school shooting as a hoax.

Jones placed Free Speech Systems into bankruptcy in late July while he was in the middle of an Austin trial that ended with jurors awarding almost $50 million to the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, one of 20 children and six educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Sued by other Sandy Hook families, Jones and Free Speech Systems are facing a similar trial this month in Connecticut and another trial later this year in Austin.

With potentially large jury awards looming, bankruptcy proceedings for Free Speech Systems — which reported $9.4 million in profits on $14.3 million in income in the first five months of this year — could determine how much money the Sandy Hook families receive, as well as the continued viability of Jones’ Austin-based InfoWars media system.

Lawyers for the Sandy Hook parents recently told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez that they don’t trust

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September 6, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Jury selection begins Thursday in Alex Jones’ CT Sandy Hook trial

NEWTOWN — Just days after a Texas jury decided Alex Jones should pay $49.2 million in defamation damages to parents of a slain Sandy Hook boy, a new trial for other families Jones defamed will begin in Waterbury on Thursday with jury selection.

News that jury selection will begin in a trial that will determine how much Jones should pay eight Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent he defamed comes one day after a federal judge in Bridgeport stripped Jones of protection he was seeking when he put the parent company of his conspiracy merchandising platform Infowars into bankruptcy.

At stake is the future of Jones as the face of America’s conspiracy community and the fate of 15 people Jones defamed when he called the 2012 shooting of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely fake with actors.”

“I am looking forward to taking this to the jury,” said Norm Pattis, a high-profile New Haven attorney who is running Jones’ defense in Connecticut. “We have heard what the plaintiff’s have had to say about this case ad nauseam, and now we want to hear what the jury says.”

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August 19, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Sandy Hook parents seek to stop InfoWars bankruptcy payments to Alex Jones

By Dietrich Knauth

(Reuters) – Parents of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre urged a U.S. bankruptcy judge on Wednesday not to allow the parent company of far-right website InfoWars to send any money to its founder, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, or his companies until they have an opportunity to get to the bottom of InfoWars’ finances.

As a jury deliberates in Austin, Texas, over how much Jones must pay two parents for his false claims that the deadly shooting was a hoax, families of Sandy Hook victims who have sued Jones for defamation in that trial and others who have sued in Connecticut warned a bankruptcy judge in Houston that Jones might continue to pull assets from InfoWars parent company Free Speech Systems LLC while using its bankruptcy case to avoid paying court judgments in the defamation cases.

Marty Brimmage, an attorney for the Sandy Hook parents, told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston on Wednesday that Jones had told his audience that the bankruptcy would “tie up” any defamation judgment for years.

Judges in the Texas and Connecticut cases have already found Jones liable for defamation. The parents in the Texas trial are seeking

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August 14, 2022 by ATTORNEY
May 2024
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