How do you pay back nearly a billion and a half dollars in legal damages? If you’re Alex Jones, you just don’t. Last fall the Infowars honcho was ordered to pay an unimaginable sum to families of Sandy Hook massacre victims, whom he spent years slandering with deranged conspiracy theories. That could have been the end of Jones, who had a meltdown while his verdict was read. Alas, according to a New York Times report, he managed to find a Plan B:
A New York Times review of financial documents and court records filed over the past year found that Mr. Jones has transferred millions of dollars in property, cash and business deals to family and friends, including to a new company run by his former personal trainer, all potentially out of reach of creditors. He has also spent heavily on luxuries, including $80,000 on a private jet, bodyguards and a rented villa while he was in Connecticut to testify at a trial last fall.
As such, the families are worried they may never see what they’re owed. What’s more, the families are finding that the American bankruptcy system has sided with Jones, who has tried to obfuscate the size of his wealth. Jones has taken advantage of a law put into effect in early 2020 that allows more lenient rules for small businesses. Infowars has qualified for that law, even though its estimated revenues, of some $70 million a year, are not exactly small.
Throughout this ordeal, Jones — who was sometimes a nightmare in court — has taunted the families, whom he’s called “jerks.” Infowars, meanwhile, has been thriving in the wake of the lawsuit, with Jones calling it a conspiracy to silence him. “If anybody thinks they’re shutting me down, they’re mistaken,” he declared on his podcast last month.
So far the only money Jones has forked over in relation to the lawsuit is to his lawyers.
(Via NYT)