WASHINGTON — The Infowars fabulist Alex Jones filed for Chapter 11 personal bankruptcy on Friday, citing nearly $1.5 billion in damages juries awarded this year to the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims, who won a series of defamation cases against Mr. Jones after he lied for years about the school shooting.
The filing in the Southern District of Texas in Houston comes atop the bankruptcy filing by Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, in late July. The personal bankruptcy filing could further delay payment of the verdicts for the families, who would need to seek payment through the bankruptcy courts alongside other creditors. But it could also force a greater degree of scrutiny on the finances of Mr. Jones’s empire.
For more than four years of the Sandy Hook litigation, Mr. Jones has stonewalled the courts on providing business records, financial information and other records. In a separate lawsuit, the Sandy Hook families have accused Mr. Jones of improperly siphoning assets from his business and channeling them to himself and his family. He will now ostensibly be required to reveal more about those assets.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
