Alex Jones again on the hook for damages after chapter choose sends Sandy Hook instances to Texas court docket

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

“(We) are relieved but not shocked that Mr. Jones’ latest stunt has failed like all of the others,” mentioned Mark Bankston, an legal professional representing 4 dad and mom who won two defamation cases in opposition to Jones in Texas last year. “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 chapter courtroom where three Jones-controlled entities filed for Chapter 11 protection one week before a jury trial was to start to find out what damages Jones owed two mother and father he defamed when he called the worst crime in Connecticut history “staged,” “artificial,” “manufactured,” “an enormous hoax,” and “fully faux with actors.”

The chapter decide’s ruling means the first postponed defamation awards trial in Texas could start as quickly as June, Bankston recommended.

Among the many disclosures that got here out of the bankruptcy court hearings is that Jones has suffered financially as the Sandy Hook defamation circumstances have progressed. Jones has spent not less than $10 million on authorized charges and has misplaced not less than $20 million, his representatives mentioned in court. Jones didn't file for chapter protection himself, his consultant stated in court, as a result of he feared it will injury his model within the conspiracy theory market.

Meanwhile in Connecticut, the place 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 against Jones in 2021, a hearing was deliberate in Connecticut bankruptcy court on Tuesday that is anticipated to result in the same end result because the Texas circumstances.

The rationale has to do with a maneuver the Sandy Hook families took right here and in Texas to outflank Jones in bankruptcy courtroom.

Jones’ Chapter 11 filing put on maintain the 2 trials in Texas and the third deliberate in Connecticut, since federal court docket trumps state proceedings. Legal professionals for families right here and in Texas fought Jones’ Chapter 11 petitions as “dangerous religion” filings, since Jones himself and his money-making Free Speech systems didn't file for bankruptcy. The three Jones-controlled entities that sought Chapter 11 safety have a mixed month-to-month income of $38,000 whereas Jones himself made at the least $76 million in 2019, his representatives stated in court docket.

In response, the households dropped Jones’ three enterprise entities in chapter from their lawsuits. As a result of the families now not had a stake in the bankruptcies, they argued, their lawsuits towards Jones and Free Speech techniques could be released back to the state courts for trial. The households argued that their target was Jones himself and Free Speech Methods, who were not celebration to the bankruptcies.

In rulings on Thursday and Friday, the federal bankruptcy courtroom in Texas agreed.

It stays to be seen whether Connecticut chapter courtroom will rule similarly. The trial to award defamation damages to the Sandy Hook households in Connecticut had been scheduled for August.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342