Alex Jones files for personal bankruptcy

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones filed for personal bankruptcy on Friday.

The man behind far-right website Infowars filed for Chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston, citing nearly $1.5 billion in damages awarded to the families of victims of the Texas Massacre this year Sandy Hook Elementary was awarded to the New York Times.

The families won a series of defamation lawsuits against Jones this year after years of his spreading lies and conspiracy theories about the shooting.

Jones began spreading the lies just hours after the December 14, 2012, death of 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, falsely claiming the massacre was by the government as a pretext for the confiscation of the weapons of the Americans and that the families took part in the conspiracy. He has lied for years and subjected families to endless abuse and death threats from his followers.

Friday’s filing follows the filing for bankruptcy earlier this year by Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems. The new filing could potentially slow payments to the families, who among other creditors would need to seek compensation from the bankruptcy courts, but it could also force officials to take a closer look at Jones’ finances and operations, the Times said.

Jones has long resisted requests to produce business records, financial information and other documents. Earlier this year, in another lawsuit by one of the families, Jones was accused of hiding assets by withdrawing $18 million from his company’s accounts from 2018, when he began dealing with court cases. It also accused Jones of alleging that his company owed $54 million in debt to another company that the lawsuit claims Jones owns “directly or indirectly.”