Alex Jones can't use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying Sandy Hook victims

A Texas judge has ruled that Infowars host Alex Jones cannot use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying more than $1.1 billion to the families of Sandy Hook victims who sued him over his conspiracy theories that the shooting was a hoax.

Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year, but U.S. District Judge Christopher Lopez of Houston ruled that the protections do not apply over findings of "wilful and malicious" conduct.

"The families are pleased with the Court's ruling that Jones' malicious conduct will find no safe harbour in the bankruptcy court," said Christopher Mattei, a Connecticut lawyer for the families. "As a result, Jones will continue to be accountable for his actions not the future regardless of his claimed bankruptcy."

Jones posted a video on the Infowars website saying the judges ruling will have little practical effect because he is over $1 million in debt personally.

"It's all academic. I don't have a million dollars," he said. "My company has a few million, but that's just to pay the bills and my product in the future. So we are literally on empty. So this idea that... we're going to take your money away doesn't exist because the money doesn't exist. It's all political."

Jones also said he continues to appeal the verdicts, "at the end of the day, they won't take my free speech away," he said. "I'm still going to be on the air one way or another."

Jones began to make false conspiracies a centrepiece of his programming after the 2012 shooting that killed 26. He claimed that the shooting in Connecticut was a "false flag" perpetrated by gun control advocates and that "no one died".

Despite Jones' claim that he has no money, his personal spending reached $93,000 in July alone, according to his monthly financial reports in the bankruptcy case. The Sandy Hook families are yet to receive any of the nearly $1.5 billion awarded to them by the jury last year.

The money Jones owes could increase, with another lawsuit pending in Texas, brought forward by the parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner who was killed in the attack. No trial date has been set.

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