Alex Jones’s companies, including his far-right website Infowars, have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after being hit with several defamation lawsuits over his assertion that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax.
Infowars, Infowars Health, and Prison Planet TV all filed for bankruptcy in the Southern District of Texas, CBS News reported. The move will allow the companies to remain operational while they devise a plan to reorganize. The bankruptcy proceedings also place a pause on any pending civil litigation.
Jones is facing several defamation lawsuits over his comments about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012, which killed 20 first graders and six educators. Jones claimed on Infowars that the shooting was a “hoax” staged by crisis actors to gin up opposition to the Second Amendment.
Relatives of the victims of the shooting say they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones’s followers.
A judge found the radio host liable for damages in three defamation cases brought by families of the Sandy Hook victims. While Jones offered to settle the lawsuits by paying $120,000 to each plaintiff.
The families turned down the proposal in court documents saying, “The so-called offer is a transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs and the memory of their loved ones lost at Sandy Hook.”
Now, a trial to determine how much he should pay the families is set to begin in August.
Jones has since said he believes the massacre did occur.
Infowars listed its estimated assets to be between $0 and $50,000 and its estimated liabilities in the range of $1 million to $10 million, according to court filings cited by Reuters.