Alex Jones back on the hook for damages after bankruptcy choose sends Sandy Hook cases to Texas court docket

NEWTOWN — A federal chapter choose has released extremist Alex Jones from Chapter 11 safety and sent his defamation circumstances back to state court in Texas, where the parents of two boys slain in the Sandy Hook bloodbath await jury trials to see how much Jones will have to pay them.

“(We) are relieved however not stunned that Mr. Jones’ newest stunt has failed like all the others,” said Mark Bankston, an lawyer representing 4 dad and mom who won two defamation circumstances towards Jones in Texas last 12 months. “Mr. Jones will now be held to account in a Travis County courtroom in the coming weeks, and these families will lastly have the closure and recompense they deserve.”

Bankston was referring to a month-long saga in Texas bankruptcy court where three Jones-controlled entities filed for Chapter 11 safety one week earlier than a jury trial was to start to find out what damages Jones owed two parents he defamed when he known as the worst crime in Connecticut history “staged,” “artificial,” “manufactured,” “an enormous hoax,” and “fully faux with actors.”

The chapter decide’s ruling means the primary postponed defamation awards trial in Texas could begin as quickly as June, Bankston prompt.

Among the many disclosures that got here out of the bankruptcy court docket hearings is that Jones has suffered financially as the Sandy Hook defamation instances have progressed. Jones has spent a minimum of $10 million on legal charges and has lost no less than $20 million, his representatives said in court docket. Jones didn't file for chapter protection himself, his representative said in courtroom, as a result of he feared it will harm his brand in the conspiracy concept market.

In the meantime in Connecticut, where an FBI agent and eight households who lost family members in the massacre of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary College additionally received a defamation case in opposition to Jones in 2021, a hearing was deliberate in Connecticut bankruptcy courtroom on Tuesday that's expected to result in the same end result because the Texas cases.

The reason has to do with a maneuver the Sandy Hook families took here and in Texas to outflank Jones in chapter court.

Jones’ Chapter 11 submitting put on hold the 2 trials in Texas and the third planned in Connecticut, since federal court trumps state proceedings. Lawyers for families here and in Texas fought Jones’ Chapter 11 petitions as “dangerous faith” filings, since Jones himself and his money-making Free Speech methods did not file for bankruptcy. The three Jones-controlled entities that sought Chapter 11 safety have a mixed month-to-month income of $38,000 while Jones himself made at the least $76 million in 2019, his representatives stated in courtroom.

In response, the households dropped Jones’ three business entities in bankruptcy from their lawsuits. As a result of the households no longer had a stake within the bankruptcies, they argued, their lawsuits towards Jones and Free Speech methods could possibly be released back to the state courts for trial. The households argued that their target was Jones himself and Free Speech Systems, who were not celebration to the bankruptcies.

In rulings on Thursday and Friday, the federal chapter court in Texas agreed.

It stays to be seen whether or not Connecticut chapter courtroom will rule equally. The trial to award defamation damages to the Sandy Hook households in Connecticut had been scheduled for August.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342