
Alex Jones accused of trying to shield assets as Sandy Hook families seek payment on $1B judgment
Three new lawsuits filed by the trustee on Friday alleging fraudulent asset transfers are the latest developments in Jones' long-running bankruptcy case, which has been pending in federal court in Houston for more than two years. In financial statements filed in bankruptcy court last year, Jones listed his net worth at $8.4 million.
The Sandy Hook families won nearly $1.5 billion in judgments in 2022 in lawsuits filed in Connecticut and Texas accusing Jones of defamation and emotional distress for saying the school shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators was a hoax. Victims' relatives testified in court about being terrorized by Jones' supporters.
Attempts to liquidate Jones' Infowars broadcasting and product-selling platforms and give the proceeds to the families and other creditors have been hindered by a failed auction and legal wrangling. Jones, meanwhile, continues to appeal the Sandy Hook judgments.
Here's what to know about the status of Jones' bankruptcy case:
Trustee sues Jones alleging improper money and property transfers
The trustee, Christopher Murray, alleges that Jones tried to shield the money through a complex series of money and property transfers among family members, various trusts and limited liability companies. Other named defendants include Jones' wife, Erika; his father, David Jones; and companies and trusts.
Murray alleges that a trust run by Jones and his father fraudulently transferred nearly $1.5 million to various other Jones-associated entities in the months leading up to the bankruptcy. Jones is also accused of fraudulently transferring $1.5 million to his wife, more than $800,000 in cash and property to his father and trying to hide ownership of two condominiums in Austin, Texas, with a combined value of more than $1.5 million.
Murray is trying to recoup that money and property for creditors.
Jones' bankruptcy lawyers did not return email messages seeking comment.
In an email to The Associated Press, Erika Wulff Jones called the lawsuits 'pure harassment' and said she already had sat for a deposition. She said 'the accounting has been done,' but did not elaborate.
A lawyer for David Jones did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Jones railed against the new allegations on his show on Saturday. He has repeatedly said Democratic activists and the Justice Department are behind the Sandy Hook defamation lawsuits and bankruptcy proceedings, and claimed they were now 'trying to get' to him by suing his father, who he says is seriously ill.
The fraud allegations are similar to those in a lawsuit in a Texas state court filed by Sandy Hook families. Jones also denied those claims. That lawsuit was put on hold because of the bankruptcy.
Sandy Hook families still haven't received money from Jones
Jones says the fact that the Sandy Hook families haven't received any money from him yet should be expected because he is appealing the $1.5 billion in judgments.
Infowars' assets continue to be tied up in the legal processes. Those assets, and some of Jones' personal assets, are being held by Murray for eventual distribution to creditors.
An effort to sell Infowars' assets was derailed when U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez rejected the results of a November auction in which The Onion satirical news outlet was named the winning bidder over only one other proposal by a company affiliated with Jones. The Onion had planned to turn the Infowars platforms into parody sites.
Lopez had several concerns about the auction, including a lack of transparency and murky details about the actual value of The Onion's bid and whether it was better than the other offer. The judge rejected holding another auction and said the families could pursue liquidation of Jones' assets in the state courts where the defamation judgments were awarded.
In a financial statement last year, Infowars' parent company, Free Speech Systems, listed $18 million in assets, including merchandise and studio equipment.
What's next
Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families said they will soon move their effort to sell Infowars' assets to a Texas state court in Austin, where they expect a receiver to be appointed to take possession of the platform's possessions and sell them to provide money to creditors. A court schedule has not been set.
'The families we represent are as determined as ever to enforce the jury's verdict, and he will never outrun it,' Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut lawsuit, said Tuesday.
Jones' appeals, meanwhile, continue in the courts. He said he plans to appeal the Connecticut lawsuit judgment to the U.S. Supreme Court, after the Connecticut Supreme Court declined to hear his challenge. A lower state appeals court upheld all but $150 million of the original $1.4 billion judgment. The $49 million judgment in the Texas lawsuit is before a state appeals court.
He said in 2022 that he believes the shootings were '100% real.'
Because Infowars' assets are still tied up in the courts, Jones has been allowed to continue broadcasting his shows and hawking merchandise from Infowars' Austin studio.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
Why Starmer has more to worry about than his inability to play golf when he meets Trump at Turnberry
Keir Starmer has confided that he has never played golf before, which may prove to be a problem when he holds a bilateral with Donald Trump at the US president's Turnberry course in Scotland on Monday. The location partially explains the nervous energy around the prime minister when he discusses this last-minute arranged meeting as Trump spends a few days relaxing at his own Scottish courses. 'Golf is not something you can pick up in a weekend,' a source close to the PM said, envisaging the two holding their bilateral around 18 holes on the championship course. But a potential crash course in golf is the least of Sir Keir's concerns as he prepares for yet another crucial bilatera l with a US president he has struck up a politically unlikely friendship with. Top of the agenda will be the steel industry followed by Ukraine and Gaza - all issues where Sir Keir and Trump still seem far apart. Men of steel If sorting out the trade deal was the equivalent of a green on a golf course, Starmer would be on his third attempt with the putter trying to sink a ball which initially rolled invitingly near to the flag. Already we have effectively had two signing ceremonies for a trade agreement to tackle Trump's 'freedom day' tariffs. The first occasion in May when it was described as 'the big and beautiful deal' seemed to have resolved almost everything. Then nothing happened until the two men appeared together in Canada last month with a signed deal which the president almost immediately fumbled on to the floor. But even after that there was one crucial issue left over - steel. Trump put tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and then increased them to 50 per cent for the rest of the world, with a threat that the UK would go from 25 to 50 per cent if it did not sort the issue out. Time is running out and with the taxpayer now in hock to the future of British Steel and the entire industry staring at a precipice, Starmer needs to get the zero per cent tariff he was promised back in May. Unfortunately, there appears to be no immediate sign of that happening. Palestinian recognition There is a lot of speculation within Labour this weekend that Keir Starmer wants to recognise the state of Palestine as French president Emmanuel Macron did on Thursday. But he cannot do it until after he has had his meeting with Trump - otherwise the inevitable row over it would dominate proceedings. US secretary of state Marco Rubio made it clear that the US was disgusted with France and thought Macron was 'rewarding terrorism' by Hamas. A similar angry view would be taken with the UK. But the two do need to discuss the issues with the crisis coming to a head. Somehow Trump's enthusiasm for brokering a ceasefire there needs to be renewed and some think Starmer is the man to do that. His ability to boost the president's ego has become the blueprint for international leaders to deal with the second Trump term. Without US leadership there is a danger that the war will just go on and thousands of people trapped in Gaza will simply starve to death. In many ways Starmer will be speaking for the so-called E3 group of UK, France and Germany on the issue after the emergency phone call with Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday. Not forgetting Ukraine The Middle East may not even be Starmer's biggest international priority in these talks. He is desperate for a solution to the Ukraine problem and recently with Macron and Merz has been pushing ahead with the 'coalition of the willing' to provide a safeguard for Ukraine after a peace deal. He and Macron announced new details and plans for the coalition of the willing after the French president's recent state visit. But they are moving ahead without the one thing they need - a promise by the US to back them up militarily if things go wrong. Trump has resisted this idea, much preferring to get a share of Ukraine's mineral resources. He has shown no interest at all in Starmer's plan. But the British prime minister needs to somehow to get him on side on Monday. The State Visit While this is a private trip for Trump to look at his personal business interests (play golf on his own courses), it is a precursor to a much bigger visit in September. The invitation for a state visit came from the King and was delivered by his prime minister but details of the political side of the historic trip will be discussed. There may be an awkward moment regarding why Macron got to address a joint sitting of the Houses of Parliament and Trump will not. The excuse that it is the day after Parliament rises does not hold water because MPs and peers came back to hear the late Pope Benedict address them in 2010 in identical circumstances. There will be no shortage of rightwing British Trump friends visiting him over the next few days, including Nigel Farage and fellow Brexit bad boy Andy Wigmore, who will point out that others were treated better. How Starmer can win over Trump It is understood that the prime minister came up with a solution to deal with the diplomatic problem of having to play golf, at a recent social event in Westminster. 'We toss a coin. If the president wins we play golf, if I win we play football,' the PM is understood to have suggested. Given how much Trump enjoyed himself with Chelsea players after presenting the World Club Cup to them, that may be a solution. But it is going to take more than a coin flip for Sir Keir to persuade the president on these other issues. The one thing that matters though is that Trump values relationships and trusts people who are straight with him and give him their trust. Back at the G7 in Canada Trump made it clear that the UK will do well with him because he likes Starmer. He said: 'The UK is very well protected. You know why? Because I like them. The prime minister has done a really good job. He has done what other people have been talking about for six years and he has done it.' Starmer is going to need all the charm that he seems to have reserved for his international duties to get what he wants on Monday. But recent history suggests that it could all be within his grasp.


The Guardian
25 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Ghislaine Maxwell interviewed again by deputy US attorney general
The deputy US attorney general, Todd Blanche, held a second in-person meeting on Friday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and longtime associate of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Blanche had confirmed the two met behind closed doors in Tallahassee, Florida, on Thursday, at the federal prosecutor's office within the federal courthouse in the state capital, and they met again on Friday. Maxwell's lawyer, David Oscar Markus, on Friday afternoon said Blanche had finished his questioning for the day, NBC News first reported. Markus told reporters as he left the courthouse in downtown Tallahassee: 'We started this morning right around 9 o'clock, and went to now lunchtime, and we're finished after all day, yesterday and today. Ghislaine answered every single question asked of her over the last day and a half. She answered those questions honestly, truthfully, to the best of her ability. She never invoked a privilege. She never refused to answer a question.' He added: 'They asked about every single, every possible thing you could imagine. Everything.' The justice department has not said whether Blanche intends to question Maxwell further. Markus said he did not know whether the discussions would have any impact on her case. He had previously said Thursday's meeting was 'very productive'. Blanche had announced earlier in the week that he had contacted Maxwell's lawyers to see if she might have 'information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims'. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Tallahassee, after a jury convicted her of sex trafficking in 2021. An uproar continues to engulf Donald Trump and calls have intensified for his administration to release all details of the federal investigation into Epstein, while questions remain about whether Maxwell has any fresh light to shed on her former boyfriend's crimes. Meanwhile, the US supreme court is due to wade into the controversy and decide whether to hear a bid by Maxwell to overturn her criminal conviction. Epstein killed himself in 2019 in a jail cell in New York while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Trump, dogged by questions about his ties to Epstein, headed to Scotland on Friday for a trip that will mix golf with politics mostly out of public view. Protests await the president in the UK over his extreme agenda while scandal nips at his heels in the US. Further talking to reporters after Friday's meeting, Markus said: 'We don't know how it's going to play out. We just know that this was the first opportunity she's ever been given to answer questions about what happened, and so the truth will come out about what happened with Mr Epstein. And she's the person who's answering those questions.' Prosecutors and the judge who oversaw Maxwell's 2021 trial have said that she made multiple false statements under oath and failed to take responsibility for her actions. She was convicted for sex trafficking and other crimes, and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. 'People have questioned her honesty, which I think is just wrong,' Markus said. Asked if Maxwell had received an offer of clemency from the government, Markus said no offer had been made. Trump rejected the idea of a pardon for Maxwell after landing in the UK on Friday. 'A lot of people have been asking me about pardons' for Maxwell, he said. 'Obviously, this is no time to be talking about pardons.' Although the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, earlier this year had promised to release additional materials related to possible Epstein clients, the justice department reversed course this month and issued a memo concluding there was no basis to continue investigating and there was no evidence of a client list or blackmail. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Since then, the department has sought permission to unseal grand jury transcripts from its prior investigations into Epstein and Maxwell. On Wednesday, US district judge Robin Rosenberg denied one of those requests. Trump's name, along with many other high-profile individuals, appeared multiple times on flight logs for Epstein's private plane in the 1990s, while several media outlets have this month reported previously unpublicized and friendly communications from the US president to the high-profile financier. Meanwhile, the supreme court justices, now on their summer recess, are expected in late September to consider whether to take up the appeal by Maxwell against her conviction in 2021 by a jury in New York for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls. Maxwell's lawyers have told the supreme court that her conviction was invalid because a non-prosecution and plea agreement that federal prosecutors had made with Epstein in Florida in 2007 also shielded his associates and should have barred her criminal prosecution in New York. Her lawyers have a Monday deadline for filing their final written brief in their appeal to the court. Some legal experts see merit in Maxwell's claim, noting that it touches on an unsettled matter of US law that has divided some of the nation's regional federal appeals courts. Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said there was a chance that the supreme court would take up the case, and noted the disagreement among appeals courts. Such a split among circuit courts can be a factor when the nation's top judicial body considers whether or not to hear a case. 'The question of whether a plea agreement from one US attorney's office binds other federal prosecution as a whole is a serious issue that has split the circuits,' Epner said. While uncommon, 'there have been several cases presenting the issue over the years', Epner added. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting


The Guardian
34 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Fenway Park concession workers on strike for first time in 113 years
Hundreds of Aramark workers at Fenway Park are on strike and planning to stay out for all of a homestand between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting Friday night. Concession workers had set a deadline of noon Friday for Aramark and Fenway Park to reach an agreement with the Local 26 chapter of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island hotel, casino, airport and food services workers union. The walkout, which union leaders say is the first in Fenway Park's 113-year history, follows more than a year of contract negotiations and months of escalating frustration over pay, job security and automation. In addition to higher wages, one of the biggest sticking points has been the rise of self-service machines that Aramark installed at Fenway in 2023. The company added six Mashgin units – AI-powered kiosks that dispense beer and popcorn without the need for human staff – and Local 26 members say the machines threaten to erode the fan experience and replace workers altogether. Similar technology has already spread to 20 of the 30 ballparks across Major League Baseball and thousands of other venues nationwide. US senator Bernie Sanders, who spoke with union members during a recent Zoom call, weighed in with a public letter to Aramark CEO John Zillmer and Red Sox principal owner John Henry, urging them to support 'living wages' and 'human interaction' at the ballpark. 'If Aramark can afford to pay you $18.7 million in compensation and provide nearly $100 million in dividends for your wealthy shareholders,' Sanders wrote to Zillmer, 'it can afford to pay all of your workers a living wage and not threaten to take away their jobs and their income with faceless Mashgin touchscreen computers.' With no deal reached by the deadline, the union went on strike at noon on Friday, rallying behind demands for 'living wages, guardrails on technology and R-E-S-P-E-C-T!' The most recent bargaining session between Aramark and the union took place last Tuesday, but the two sides remain far apart on key issues. In a statement, Aramark expressed disappointment over the strike and said it had 'contingency plans in place to ensure that fans will not encounter service interruptions'. The company added it remained willing to bargain in good faith. With the Red Sox and Dodgers scheduled to start at 7.10pm local time, union officials had a message for fans attending this high-profile series: 'We're asking you to NOT buy concessions inside the ballpark,' Local 26 wrote on social media. 'Tailgate before the games!' Union workers walked the picket line outside Fenway wearing green T-shirts that read 'FENWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE' and carried signs shaped like baseballs bearing the Local 26 logo. Because concession work at Fenway is seasonal, union leaders acknowledged that a prolonged indefinite strike would pose hardships for many part-time workers. For now, the plan is to remain off the job through the weekend. The Red Sox head out of town Monday for a three-game road trip in Minnesota, before returning for a six-game homestand in August. In an open letter this week, Local 26 called on Henry and Fenway Sports Group to step in and pressure Aramark to deliver 'reasonable proposals' that reflect the workers' value. 'Mr Henry, Fenway Park is your house,' the letter said. 'We're asking you … to intervene.'