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A set of links about what’s been up with the defamation lawsuits against Alex Jones over the past year-plus.

Content warning for references (throughout these articles) to Sandy Hook and to Jones’s utterly despicable and completely false claims that the attack was faked. Also content warning for prominent photos of Jones, sometimes apparently in the midst of yelling. (Which I mention in case you find even seeing his face distressing.)

• I think the lawsuits were filed in 2018.
• “In 2019, Jones recanted his Sandy Hook comments, acknowledging that the shooting occurred and blaming his false statements on ‘a form of psychosis.’” (Mentioned in passing in a WaPo article.)
• In late 2021, Jones lost two lawsuits in a row, both by default because he “refused to turn over financial records and other documents ordered by the court.” (Same link as above.)
• The next step was a trial to determine damages.
• In July, 2022, partway through that trial, “Alex Jones’ main company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy.” It filed as a small business, presumably in order to avoid being treated as a larger business when the damages were finalized.
• In early August, 2022, Jones’s lawyer accidentally sent the plaintiffs’ lawyers two years’ worth of Jones’s text messages, which provided a great deal of evidence that Jones had been trying to keep hidden. Several articles about that incident and its consequences:
  • “Sandy Hook lawyers say Alex Jones’s attorneys accidentally gave them his phone contents.”
  • “Alex Jones, Under Questioning, Is Confronted With Evidence of Deception.”
  • “Sandy Hook family attorney exposes Alex Jones’ dishonesty during brutal cross-examination.”
  • More details about what Jones’s lawyer accidentally sent, and what the consequences could be. (Side note: At first, Jones indicated that this wasn’t a mistake, that his lawyer had just sent the info that the plaintiffs had requested. But this article makes very clear that it was a huge mistake.)
  • “Jones has spent his entire life believing the rules don’t apply to him. For decades, he’s managed to build a fantasy world where that’s true. It’s only in a courtroom that the gravity of real-world consequences seems to apply.”
• The award in one of the trials was $45.2 million in punitive damages.
• The award in another trial was $965 million. (Note: This article includes extensive self-serving quotes from Jones, including his asking his audience to send him money.)
• “Jones now faces a third trial, in Texas near the end of the year, in a lawsuit filed by the parents of another child killed in the shooting.” (Same link as previous item.)
• In late November, “Infowars host Alex Jones filed for personal bankruptcy protection […], citing debts that include nearly $1.5 billion he has been ordered to pay to [Sandy Hook] families […] His filing listed $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities and $1 million to $10 million in assets.”
• Apparently the bankruptcy declarations provide an automatic stay to the legal proceedings—but they may result in Jones having to reveal more of his financial situation and his attempts to hide his money. A bankruptcy lawyer not connected to the case estimates that the bankruptcy proceedings may take 3 to 9 months.

It is unlikely that Jones will end up having to pay $1.5 billion; at this point, it sounds like he truly doesn’t have that much money. But I’m hoping that the end result of the current proceedings will be some combination of (1) him being taken off the air, (2) all of the money he does have going to Sandy Hook parents, and (3) jail time for Jones’s perjury during the trial.