Alex Jones to liquidate assets to pay off $1.5B Sandy Hook judgment

Alex Jones will liquidate his assets to help pay off a $1.5 billion defamation judgment against him after he was sued by the families of the children who died in the Sandy Hook school shooting for saying that the massacre was a hoax.

Jones, the host of the popular Infowars site, has asked a US judge to convert his bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 liquidation, giving up on an effort to settle the judgments related to his lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Jones believes that “there is no reasonable prospect of a successful reorganization” of his debts, most of which stem from $1.5 billion awarded in defamation lawsuits, his attorneys said in a court filing late on Thursday.

A Chapter 7 liquidation would not allow Jones to escape paying the legal judgments, but it offers a streamlined procedure for selling his assets under the supervision of a court-appointed trustee.

Courts in Texas and Connecticut have ordered Jones to pay $1.5 billion to the relatives of 20 students and six staff members killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Bankruptcy can be used to wipe out debts and legal judgments, but the judge overseeing Jones’ case ruled in October that most of the defamation verdicts cannot be legally discharged because they resulted from “willful and malicious injury” caused by Jones.