Sandy Hook Families Sue to Prevent Alex Jones From Discharging $1.4 Billion Judgment in Bankruptcy

Paul, Weiss and co-counsel, representing the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on a pro bono basis, filed an adversary complaint in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas against right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, host of the InfoWars fake news website, and his company, Free Speech Systems, LLC. The complaint seeks to prevent Jones from discharging in bankruptcy the approximately $1.4 billion in damages he owes the families pursuant to a jury verdict in a defamation lawsuit against him.

For years, the adversary complaint notes, Jones engaged in harassment and commercially lucrative lies about the school shooting. He told his audience that the shooting was fake and that “the Sandy Hook Families were ‘paid . . . totally disingenuous’ ‘crisis actors’ who faked their loved ones’ deaths,” adding that Jones “urged his audience to ‘investigate,’ knowing they would respond by cyberstalking, harassing, and threatening the Sandy Hook Families.”

Following the damages verdict against him, Jones filed for bankruptcy in December 2022; Free Speech Systems also filed for bankruptcy last July. In its adversary complaint, the Sandy Hook families assert that the evidence at trial clearly proved that Jones willfully and maliciously injured the Sandy Hook Families; that he filed the bankruptcy case to avoid paying the judgments; and that, according to bankruptcy law, a debtor who has caused willful and malicious injury cannot escape liability through bankruptcy.

The Paul, Weiss team is led by restructuring partners Kyle Kimpler and Christopher Hopkins, and includes restructuring counsel Claudia Tobler and associates Robertson (Mac) McAnulty, Vida Robinson and Martin Salvucci; litigation counsel Daniel Sinnreich and associates Jonathan Day, Daniel Negless, Briana Sheridan and Jane Zhou.