Radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was court-ordered to pay $1.1 billion in defamation charges and told by a Texas judge that he couldn’t use his bankruptcy to escape the debt during a court hearing on Thursday.
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U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christoper Lopez ruled that it was unlawful for Jones to use his bankruptcy to get out of paying $1.1 billion to families of the Sandy Hook victims. As previously reported, Jones was charged with defamation after claiming on his platform that the school shooting didn’t happen and that their families were crisis actors. According to Yahoo! News, Jones also owes $324 million in attorney’s fees for the cases in Connecticut.
His lawyers claim that Jones did not lie and that his behavior towards the families was not malicious. For six years, he has maintained the idea that the 2012 deaths of 20 students and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School were staged. He and his company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy protection last year.
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Lopez said during the hearing that the controversial radio host could not remove himself from the case since he was found liable for defaming Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, whose son Noah, 6, was killed during the school shooting.
Jones’s website, InfoWars, promotes conspiracy theories and fake news, as do his other websites, NewsWars and PrisonPlanet. Jones has provided a platform and support for white nationalists, giving Unite the Right rally attendee and white supremacist Nick Fuentes a platform on his website, Banned.
Jones has spread numerous false and harmful conspiracy theories over the years, including the claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, and that the government is using chemicals to turn frogs gay. He has also promoted anti-vaccine and Holocaust denial propaganda. Jones has been repeatedly sued for defamation and other torts and has been de-platformed from major social media platforms. In 2022, he was ordered to pay $4.1 million in damages to the parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.
Despite the widespread condemnation of his views and actions, Jones remains a popular figure among some far-right and conspiracy theorist circles. He continues spreading his hate and misinformation message on his website and through his radio show.