Alex Jones filed for personal bankruptcy in Texas on Friday, according to a court filing.
Why it matters: The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing comes after Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, were ordered to pay almost $1.5 billion in damages for falsely claiming the Sandy Hook mass shooting was a hoax.
Driving the news: The bankruptcy filing said Jones owns between $1 million and $10 million of assets with $1 billion to $10 billion of liabilities.
- Jones’ affiliate business Free Speech Systems is also mentioned in the lawsuit, having filed for bankruptcy in July.
Zoom out: A Connecticut jury ordered Jones to pay $965 million in damages to Sandy Hook victims in a defamation lawsuit back in October, per Axios.
- In mid-November, a judge ordered Jones to pay an additional $473 million in damages for making false statements that the shooting was a hoax.
- Jones also has to pay $49.3 million in damages to a family of a Sandy Hook victim due to a separate lawsuit in Texas.
Context: Jones claimed that the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was staged as a way for the government to take control of Americans’ guns, Reuters reports.
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