Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ website, Infowars, can be sold to pay the damages owed to the families of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting victims, a Texas court judge ruled on Wednesday, bringing a potential end to the far-right influencer’s stewardship of the platform he used to spread falsehoods about the massacre.
Multiple legal proceedings in 2022 awarded more than $1.4 billion in damages to families of the victims of the shooting — in which 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut — after Jones repeatedly claimed the shooting was a “giant hoax” staged by anti-gun actors. Several families of the victims sued Jones and the parent company of his Infowars website, Free Speech Systems LLC, for defamation in state courts in Connecticut and Texas, alleging they were harassed by Jones’ listeners for years as a result of his lies.
Jones has claimed that he does not have enough money to pay the families, even going so far as to file for bankruptcy; the trustee overseeing the case has accused him of hiding assets. Jones has denied the allegations and has yet to pay any of the damages. Jones spent his Thursday broadcast railing against the trials, which he said were “rigged,” and vowing to build a newer, better platform, HuffPost reported.
But Judge Maya Guerra Gamble on Wednesday ordered Jones to turn over his platform to a court-appointed receiver, a Texas-based holding company that will sell Infowars’ physical and intellectual property to pay off the judgments against Jones.
Texas attorney Mark Bankston, who represented parents Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin in Jones’ Texas trial, told HuffPost in a statement, “The families are relieved that the final chapter of this saga has arrived at last. This new receivership will help provide them with the closure they’ve been denied for over a decade.”
In 2024, satirical news website The Onion won a bid to purchase Infowars — a move welcomed by the families — but a federal bankruptcy judge in Texas blocked the sale citing a lack of transparency in the process. The latest development opens the door for The Onion to try again to purchase Jones’ website.
The Onion did not immediately respond to MSNBC’s request for comment on the judge’s order, but its CEO Ben Collins posted on the social media platform BlueSky shortly after the latest development, “We’re working on it. That’s all I can say for now.”