Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is proposing to pay pennies on the greenback—simply 4%—of the $1.Four 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 increase gun management laws.
The proposal, filed Friday night time in a Houston chapter court docket, would have Jones pay $55 million over ten years. It got here only a day after the 11th 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 court docket, searching for to liquidate all of Jones’ property 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 making certain that Jones would have to 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 choose dominated in October that Jones couldn’t use chapter safety to keep away from paying households, and was nonetheless accountable for $1.1 billion of the unique punishment. Jones continues 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 precipitated these households,” Avi Moshenberg, a lawyer representing victims’ relations who sued Jones in Texas, advised The New York Occasions. “We’re very centered on the households receiving what’s truthful, and can share our assessment of Jones’s plan in due time.”
Christopher Mattei, a Connecticut legal professional representing the households, stated Jones’ proposal “falls woefully brief” of what his purchasers are entitled to below the regulation. “The households’ plan is the one possible path for making certain that Jones’ property are shortly distributed to these he has harassed for greater than a decade,” he stated in a press release 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 tens of millions of {dollars}.
Because the chapter proceedings drag on, households have pointed to Jones’ opulent post-bankruptcy way of life, with experiences exhibiting the conspiracist spending $100,000 a month. In a submitting in chapter court docket final month, the households argued that Jones “has refused to adhere to an inexpensive price range.”
A Texas choose is anticipated to maintain hearings in late February to decide a last 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 deny accountability for the harassment and abuse skilled by the Sandy Hook households, insisting that he was simply taking part in “satan’s advocate” in his feedback on the capturing.