A federal judge on Friday ordered the liquidation of political commentator Alex Jones’ personal assets.
A federal judge on Friday ordered the liquidation of political commentator Alex Jones’s personal assets to pay families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Lopez is still deciding on a separate bankruptcy case involving Mr. Jones’s company, leaving the future of the InfoWars platform in doubt.
The judge approved converting Mr. Jones’s proposed personal bankruptcy reorganization to a liquidation. He planned to hear testimony on whether his company, Austin, Texas-based Free Speech Systems, also should be liquidated. Free Speech Systems is Infowars’ parent company.
The ruling Friday means many of Mr. Jones’s personal assets will be sold off. But his primary home in the Austin area and some other belongings are exempt from bankruptcy liquidation. He already has moved to sell his Texas ranch worth about $2.8 million, a gun collection, and other assets to help pay debts.
Mr. Jones and Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022 after relatives of many victims of the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, won lawsuit judgments of more than $1.4 billion in Connecticut and $49 million in Texas against Mr. Jones and his company.
Alex Jones Responds
Ahead of the ruling, the InfoWars host has been telling his viewers that his company is on the verge of being closed down due to bankruptcy.
“I think it’s very accurate to say Infowars is a sinking ship,” Mr. Jones said on his show Wednesday, ahead of the judge’s ruling. He added that the site will “live on through all the great work we’ve done, all the reports we’ve filed, through you saving them and you sharing them, and of course I will come back stronger than ever.”
And before the judge’s ruling on Friday, he told reporters at the courthouse that it’s “probably the end of Infowars here very, very soon” but is the “beginning of my fight against tyranny.”
In a Friday social media post, Mr. Jones responded to reports that the Sandy Hook families are aiming to file a lawsuit to seize his social media accounts by saying that the accounts are his “personal thing.”