Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is proposing to pay pennies on the greenback—simply 4%—of the $1.4 billion owed to the Sandy Hook households who efficiently sued him for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional misery after he repeatedly claimed the 2012 Newtown college bloodbath was a hoax utilizing “disaster actors” to spice up gun management laws.
The proposal, filed Friday night time in a Houston chapter courtroom, would have Jones pay $55 million over ten years. It got here only a day after the eleventh anniversary of the Connecticut mass capturing, which took the lives of 20 first-graders and 6 educators.
The households filed a competing fee plan in courtroom, looking for to liquidate all of Jones’ belongings and distribute them among the many households. Whereas Jones’ plan would permit him to be launched of his debt after a decade, the household’s plan wouldn’t, successfully guaranteeing that Jones must proceed to pay out components of the judgment for the remainder of his life.
Jones declared chapter in late 2022, citing the extent of the damages, however a decide dominated in October that Jones couldn’t use chapter safety to keep away from paying households, and was nonetheless chargeable for $1.1 billion of the unique punishment. Jones remains to be interesting the unique judgment.
“At this time is the primary time Mr. Jones has publicly shared his plan to be accountable for the hurt he’s triggered these households,” Avi Moshenberg, a lawyer representing victims’ members of the family who sued Jones in Texas, instructed The New York Occasions. “We’re very centered on the households receiving what’s honest, and can share our assessment of Jones’s plan in due time.”
Christopher Mattei, a Connecticut lawyer representing the households, stated Jones’ proposal “falls woefully brief” of what his shoppers are entitled to underneath the legislation. “The households’ plan is the one possible path for guaranteeing that Jones’ belongings are rapidly distributed to these he has harassed for greater than a decade,” he stated in an announcement Saturday.
Jones spent years profiting off lies concerning the capturing whereas grieving households of the victims confronted demise threats as Infowars, Jones’ faux information firm, raked in hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.
Because the chapter proceedings drag on, households have pointed to Jones’ opulent post-bankruptcy life-style, with reviews displaying the conspiracist spending $100,000 a month. In a submitting in chapter courtroom final month, the households argued that Jones “has refused to stick to an affordable funds.”
A Texas decide is predicted to carry hearings in late February to find out a closing chapter plan.
Final week, Elon Musk reinstated Jones’ account on Twitter, previously X. In an look on an X livestream hosted by Musk, Jones continued to disclaim accountability for the harassment and abuse skilled by the Sandy Hook households, insisting that he was simply enjoying “satan’s advocate” in his feedback on the capturing.
