Alex Jones must pay $1.1 billion of Sandy Hook damages despite bankruptcy - court
stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to 
reuters.com
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones cannot use his personal bankruptcy to escape paying at least $1.1 billion in defamation damages stemming from his repeated lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, a U.S. bankruptcy judge ruled Thursday.
They say this, yet he's still making and spending to the tune of 100k per month and the courts aren't doing anything about it. Rich people don't get to go broke like the rest of us, he's gonna keep living in a nice house and making millions and get away with not paying anyone, and the courts won't do shit
This is part of due process in doing something about it. Unfortunately it's a lot faster to commit crimes and get "creative" with moving money in not-quite-crimes-but-still-bullshit than it is to weigh up their legality and enforce appropriate penalties.
When a legal system relies heavily on precedent as guidance and technicalities can destroy a decision, and fixing that might take decades and destroy lives, you have to make sure it's good. Especially when this many people are watching.
Unfortunately you're very right that the slow speeds to ensure precision are easily and visibly exploited by scumlickers like Jones.
The good news is that he’s not nearly clever enough to actually hide assets. They will get tracked over time and seized.
His parents have most of them, I shit you not.
I can see why you would think this, but this is a very unusual case. Particularly so given the decision in this article.
You're dead right in that rich people don't go broke like the rest of us - because they have accountants and lawyers set up complex business structures so if something falls over they can just walk away (or drive away in their nice car to their nice house).
This article is pretty much saying that all that usual dance isn't going to work in this case - he still has to pay $1.1b.
Also, there's no law that prevents him from going on making money. That may not feel "right" or just but that dynamic is the same even for poor people. That said, at 100k per month it would take him 916 years to pay $1.1b soo... he might curtail his luxurious lifestyle, maybe not.
At what point does his bankruptcy and the law diverge, is where what need reevaluated
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving "person". This isn't going to bring the kids back but at least it'll stop people from fucking harassing the parents decades later. Jones is mentally fucked up and he deserves to be locked up.
And yet I believe he still will not pay them a dime... just like if trump loses all his court cases in New York, I really believe he will just refuse to pay and force them to chase him around asking for that money for the rest of his life. Rich people never have to pay fines in the US, its all for show, they always find a way to get around everything.
The victims will almost certainly not see the full $1.1B, or even anything close to that. Not because Jones will hole up his money and refuse to pay, but because Jones doesn't have the assets to cover it, and never will. With a judgement hanging over him, he will be unable to raise the capital necessary to ever pay it back--it takes money to make money, especially when you need to crack the billion dollar mark.
Jones himself is still fucked. Rich people get away with stuff because they hire good lawyers. Jones forgot that part of the plan.
Jones hired good lawyers, then fired them, then hired more, then fired them, then hired more, then fired them... etc.
During the sandyhook trials he went through something like 30 lawyers. Often the parents lawyers interacted with a different set of lawyers basically on every deposition.
I have to imagine Jones's lawyers told him to STFU, which he never could do.
You are aware that he doesn't have a choice whether he pays, right?
Court orders will be issued for his assets. You don't see rich people paying for their crimes because they get away with it. Successful scumbags don't put themselves in positions like this.
Right. Successful scumbags have lawyers that are worth a damn, and make some kind of defense before the judge stops waiting and enters a default judgement. Jones already failed that part. The rest is inevitable.
Successful scumbags listen to their lawyers every now and then BEFORE they get sued. At least then if they do get sued their asses are coverable.
Yeah but the way he incorporated the business, his parents own most of the business interests, which is going to take a lot to claw back. It's really insidious.
HAHA
Fuck you Alex Jones
That's... wild.
Aside from whatever you feel about this guy, he's fucked. It might take some time but the victims will start to get court orders to seize his assets, which they can then present to banks, police, and other authorities, who will then turn them over directly.
The USA has it's fingers in almost every financial network in the world and Alex Jones can no longer be safe anywhere except basically crypto, bad actor countries, and I guess cash in his mattress. For the rest of his life. And he can't escape it with bankruptcy.
He'll be better off trying to get citizenship in Russia or China or something and never coming back.
Good.
Yep, good. Look at the damage he did. He'll have sufficient funds to have food and shelter. Anything beyond that he does not deserve.
How much divisiveness did he cause?
How many screaming arguments?
How many families did he break up?
How many bar room fights?
How much pain for grieving parents?
Fuck him, he's a cunt.
According to other comments here, referring to OJ's case, this is not likely to happen.
OK, point taken. He'll have sufficient funds to live a comfortable life (which is disgraceful for a bankrupt individual). But at least there's the satisfaction in knowing he won't get it all.
Apologies for the misunderstanding. I'm from the UK where it's tougher to game the bankruptcy laws and you need to lie before court.
Edit: typos
You would think he would pay, but look at OJ. Verdict to pay 30 million, and after all these years he only did 130,000.
Getting assets seized and wages garnished is not as easy as you would think.
Yeah that'strue. From what little I know OJ is allowed to make/keep enough so that he's far from destitute, but he sure hasn't don't anything redeeming since.
I guess if you know your work would lead to money that you can't keep, you'd choose to just not work.
I'm not really in the loop on this but can someone ELI5 why Alex Jones is the only one that's being forced to pay money for the shit that comes out of his mouth? It seems like everyone else is doing whatever they want with no repercussions.
He made very specific defamatory statements accusing fellow citizens / parents of murdered children of participating in a government conspiracy and those people were able to prove they experienced harm as a consequence of his words.
The plaintiffs also had enough financial backing from (understandably horrified) strangers, and a high enough chance of winning for lawyers to want to represent them. Those factors allowed the plaintiffs to survive the legal system long enough to get a ruling, and the severity of the situation maintained their motivation to keep pushing for it instead of accepting settlement so they could somewhat move on with their lives.
Sometimes, the planets align to create the trifecta of enough energy, money, and evidence to force the justice system into enforcing justice. And I am grateful that can sometimes still happen, as rare as it feels.
I prefer to think thusly:
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
---Martin Luther King, Jr.
But I can certainly understand people's pessimism, looking at the world around us...
That's fair, I'm not a flat-bow conspiracy theorist, even if the curve looks real flat right now from down here.
I wonder if MLK ever read Hegel. I know he got a doctorate so it's not outside the realm of possibility.
Nothing's been enforced though. Jones is proceeding with his life pretty much unchanged.
Because it’s still in process. This stuff goes slow but he will lose everything.
I'm not holding my breath. Rich people do not play under the same rules as normal people. Bankrupt me and I'm on the street. Bankrupt rich dudes and somehow they still have lawyers, nice clothes and roofs over their heads that they own.
Depends on which chapter of bankruptcy, which all entail wildly different things. There's bankruptcy that effectively eliminates debt and others which force you and your debtors to come to the bargaining table to restructure your payment plan or they get nothing since you could just file for actual bankruptcy
The difference is if you can afford to pay for the lawyers necessary to create that restructuring or if there's any trust at all that you can pay it off eventually without getting yourself deeper in debt
Jones isn't important enough to the machine that they'll expend any energy or resources sheltering him. I bet this does get him in the end.
Alex Jones and/or his lawyers were too stupid to show up to court and defend themselves, so Jones automatically lost a defamation lawsuit without anyone even proving that Jones lied.
Wow, you might be thinking, that's great for these plaintiffs but surely nobody else would be dumb enough to ignore a defamation lawsuit and thus instantly lose! Well, let me introduce you to a certain Donald J Trump.
Yeah, his lawyers were super incompetent. They pretty much proved to everyone he was lying.
It went even further than just sending the messages. Jones' attorneys sending those could maybe have been a mistake. Had opposing counsel just gone and used them it could have bogged the whole process down horrifically. They'd likely appeal and fight that hard. So opposing counsel did the ethical thing and informed Jones' attorneys multiple times seeking clarification and basically covering their own ass a bit. Jones' attorneys didn't respond. They could have said "that was a mistake and privileged so you can't use them", but they didn't. Jones first found out in court while being cross examined. It was hilarious.
The video I saw of the lawyer telling AJ in court that he had all that and his lawyer did fuck-all to fix it is FANTASTIC.
Edit - Its in the link! WATCH IT
I saw it live and laughed my ass off.
I loved the legal commentary around it that Perry Mason moments don't happen, except this time, it did.
I think they were afraid of discovery revealing even more malicious information than what's being assumed.
After listening to all of the Knowledge Fight podcast's 70+ hours worth of coverage of both cases (including multiple interviews with the plaintiffs lawyers)... I don't believe for a minute that Alex Jones' lawyers are competent enough to attempt a devious strategy.
Fun fact: they actually just fined Alex $1 for each time he said "I don't remember" or "I don't recall that" during the depositions and that's how it got up to over a billion.
And Dan testified for the plaintiffs as an expert witness! Pretty incredible
Minor correction, Dan didn't testify. He was present for some of the depositions of Alex in the TX case, being there to help guide Mark Bankston's questioning. Mostly mentioning cause Dan was pretty clear he didn't want to actually testify
Oops, you are right! Thanks for catching that
Only for his lawyers to send the prosecutors a copy of every text message that he sent and received for the last 2 years. Haha
There's a proto-fascist idea out there that authoritarians can find all the best people and put them in positions to do their best work. What actually happens is that they select people for personal loyalty first and competence a distant second. This is why Trump and Jones have such shit people on their legal teams.
You literally described Putin aswell lmao
On top of everything else, his idiot lawyer accidentally emailed ALL of the discovery evidence that they had claimed didn't exist TO THE PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY. As well as no showing and getting a summary judgement.
There is so much stupid in that trial, you really should go find a legal YouTuber who documented the various levels of idiocy and just watch in amazement.
I'd recommend LegalEagle.
Honestly, just watch the straight trial footage. It’s entertaining enough on its own.
Alex Jones got himself into this position via a trifecta of pure stupid.
First of all, he made claims that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax. This turned public opinion against him severely, because Sandy Hook was a lines-crossed kind of event. Although school shootings are common in America, these tended to happen in colleges and high schools. Sandy Hook was an elementary school, meaning the victims were much younger
Secondly, he called the victims of the aforementioned shooting 'crisis actors', people who are paid to portray victims during emergency drills. These lies by Jones directly led to harassment campaigns against families that were already grieving the loss and extremely violent deaths of their very young children. This also got national attention, and many people pitched into the responding lawsuits raised by the grieving families against Jones's media company.
Thirdly, and perhaps a big reason why the punishment is so severe, Jones treated court hearings and depositions as optional, and skipped a huge amount of them. He didn't even seriously attempt to defend himself in a court of law, and when he did try, his lawyers were either idiots or actively working against him, leaking text messages (EDIT: and emails) that contradicted his own testimony. This led to a lot of default and highly punitive judgements against him.
To the third point, if they had done the minimum, they were more or less fine. The burden lied with the plaintiffs. He handed them a default judgement dream.
He also platformed several “journalists” who were actively harassing the Sandy Hook families, repeatedly claimed one of the parents was autistic, and during the trial shared a photoshop of the judge as a demon or something. He was bragging the entire time that he was “bankrupt” and they wouldn’t see a dime, while his series of weird shell corporations (lots of money hidden with his parents) was unfolded before the court.
He was in Hawaii like two months ago on vacation/looking for Zuckerberg’s secret hideout lol.
I hear ya. There are at least some other recent examples. The settlement between Fox News and Dominion. Giuliani is being held to account for libeling the Georgia poll workers. And of course all the Trump cases. But yeah, feels like a drop in the ocean.
Because most public figures leave themselves some wiggle room.
Like "just asking questions" or being careful to qualify their statements.
"Some people are saying that Sandy Hook was a fabrication, and I think they make a pretty convincing case. Are the parents hiding something?" vs "these parents of so called victims are lying, they're actors hired by the government to take away our guns"
Plus I think Alex Jones included some calls to action that led to harassment of these grieving families - he didn't leave himself any way to wiggle out of it. Especially since his exposed communications made it obvious he had no valid basis to assert he believed it , and he showed contempt for the legal process
most of these dorks settle to avoid discovery, alex jones basically thinks rules don't apply to him.
Because Jones is a fat sausage greaseball who was just a useful idiot. His usefulness has run its course.
Don't pretend Jones was just an innocent victim in all of this. He wasn't used. He knew what he was doing. That's why he's made so much money off of it.
I heard this picture as the "failure sound" on The Price is Right.
Time to start freezing assets and looking for what he's got offshore (and in Russia).
Well since the USA has brought back debtor prisons anyhow, I know someone that ought to be in one
Dude, what the fuck. How morally bankrupt is the US?
Think of the lowest point you can imagine and still have a functioning society. Realize there's at least a solid third that want to go lower than that.
Debtors prisons are still illegal and don't exist in the US. It's all explained in the article, but the issue is really that poor people have bad legal representation, local judges aren't all great, and private debt collection is out of control.
In the US, your creditors should generally only be able to garnish your wages up to legal maximums. You can't get prison sentences in civil trials.
Arrests are a last-resort way for a court to force someone to appear. The other jail time is basically contempt of court for failing to comply with court orders. These should probably exist in general, but they are likely misapplied for the above reasons in these cases.
Write to you representatives about the above stuff, not debtors prisons, since they won't know what you are talking about.
How is that constitutional?
EDIT: The U.S. government needs to be overthrown so bad 🤦
That article is about state governments. Overthrowing the federal government probably won't be the best course of action.
Overthrowing any state or local government would require taking on and overthrowing the feds by the nature of the hierarchy.
I love this for him.
I was once told by a wise man, “Jar-jar Binks has a Caribbean, black accent”.
This is what the “loser little, lil titty baby” deserves. Only a shame it’s arriving so late.
A fellow policy wonk, I see.
Hi, Andy in Kansas, I love you
My neck is freakishly large
"I love you"
Couldn’t have happened to a better guy, honestly
Good
Good
Yeah, schadenfreude aside, I'm glad that someone doing obviously criminal shit is seeing repercussions. The guy could have worked a normal job, done normal journalism. Instead, he decided that spreading hateful misinformation is a business model. This punishment makes it not a business model.
Very much TBD on that one, I don't think he has paid a dime or changed his lifestyle at all. His show is the same and he's still raking it in.
So how does paying these fines work? Does he give a percentage of his earnings or what?
Creative accounting will show him making $0/year until his death
If this ends up being met with creative accounting, I'd be happy for the courts to answer with creative torture.
Yeah, no, that’s not how the system is rigged unfortunately.
I think it's extremely unlikely he'll earn a billion dollars before he drops dead of an aneurysm in the middle of a far right screed.
It's a thousand million dollars and it's been years since they needed him to funnel unmedicated schizophrenics into political extremism.
Yeah I know the number is kinda for show. It's more to keep him laying indefinitely. Only question is how he even pays the fraction he'll be able to pay in his lifetime.
Forced selling off of assets?
Nothing matters until they find him guilty of contempt of court in not paying his judgements, everything else is just wasting time
Well no. It's the step after that, when they actually seize his assets, that's when you finally got to the point where things change.
Now i understand why he is appearing on russian propaganda shows, perhaps trying to pull a Snowden?
Still waiting
How? where's the money?
so should I buy Super Male Vitality drops to support Sandy Hook victims?
Only if you like Pb in your supplements. And I mean lead, not peanut butter.
How is this not all over the news?
LMAO
.1 billion is like 100x more than I'll probably ever see in my life.
Bwahahahahahaha!
Wring him dry
There are more amenable murders
ya but he has to look at his face every day. hope his life is as tortured as his brain appears to be. I'm glad the thumbnail only shows half his mug
Lemmy: "NO ONE SHOULD BE A BILLIONAIRE" also Lemmy: "1 billion dollars is a fair punishment for saying stupid shit"
Those are very different things...
nobody in particular is getting a billion dollars from lawsuits against jones, because there are so many people suing him. hopefully his operation is just eroded into obscurity and then we have to hear from the next ten dozen idiots who will take his place. it's the knowledge fight, baby.
No single defamation case against an individual should have 1 billion dollars in damages. If this was anyone other than a widely hated political actor people would rightfully say that its an excessive amount.
jones did this to himself.
You could say that about anyone. There is not a world in which 1b in damages from defamation against a private individual makes sense.
He's not paying 1billion for a single defamation case. For one thing that's the sum of multiple cases against him, and the more significant thing is that he lost because he did not fight it through the legal process and got a default judgement entered against him, and the most significant thing is that this amount is awarded due to punitive damages.
The amount is not simply meant to compensate the aggrieved party. That would have been capped to a much smaller amount. However because of a continuous series of intentional deceit and fraudulent actions during the lawsuit itself, punitive damages were awarded instead, where the point is to set an example against such behavior in court cases.
That extra punishment is for the benefit of the legal system rather than the aggrieved, it was something he could have simply avoided by just fighting the court case through the normal legal process. He would have simply lost and would only have had to pay a fraction of that amount.
The point of the ability to punish subversion of the legal process is that otherwise, no legal consequence for ignoring the court, would mean that anyone could completely ignore the legal process (which is what he was attempting to do).
https://www.reuters.com/legal/jury-begins-third-day-deliberations-alex-jones-sandy-hook-defamation-trial-2022-10-12/ this seems to imply it was 965m in one case, which is close enough to a billion to say it is.
Multiple plaintiffs in a single case, similar to a class action. I think OPs point still stands.
The original post said:
It was still a single case, ruled by a single judge. It's much different than many different cases adding like like was suggested. One case, 1b in damages.
Huh? Is that relatable in your head? That explains some things.
I bet it'd be less "stupid shit" if you were on the receiving end of his terror campaign, receiving constant death threats and harassments by his fans, all of whom claiming that your dead child never existed and to stop lying and fake crying.
I think punishments should be realistic and not make a man pay 1 billion fucking dollars because he said something stupid. Take the money he made from such statements, with maybe a little bit more on as punishment. There is no world in which a 1.1b amount makes sense. The only purpose is to put him in debt for his entire life, and since this is a political hot button issue people will cheer it along.
If you were the one who actually killed the kids you would have a lower damages value.
Yes, lets all cry tears of sorrow for the poor persecuted Alex Jones.
How dare he be subject to the find out after spending so long fucking around.
I'm advocating for reasonable punishments for crimes rather than a small nation's gdp in damages because he is politically controversial. I think we can all agree that courts should not be handing out unfathomably large punishments in civil cases just because the person is politically unpopular.
The dude has enough resources to casually spend more money in a month than most of us make in multiple years, he got those resources by deliberately and knowingly telling lies that ruined the lives of multiple grieving families, he took a giant shit on the entire judicial system by refusing to appear for multiple hearings and repeatedly telling bald-faced lies to the court, and then he handed direct evidence of those bald-faced lies to opposing counsel and let them use it in court. If there's anyone who deserves life-ruining punishment, it's this shithead.
He does not have 1b dollars, don't be ridiculous. And don't pretend he made all his money from sandy hook conspiracies either. Journalists tell lies all the time, and they're never hit with 1b in damages
This is what we call a soft hand conservative.
not screaming bloody murder about killing their political rivals and calling everyone groomers.
But trying to sound sane and reasonable, but still dropping gems that reveal their true intentions and nature like
and demanding sympathy for poor, mistreated alex jones and how its a miscarriage of the justice system for him to lose the empire built on lies, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fake medical products, and using that to incite violence and harassment against others, all because of his own actions, that he chose to take.
Bet if this was Rachael Maddow he wouldnt be wringing his hands so hard over it.
You guys pathologize normal opinions a lot of people have way too much. There were journalists that created entire false narratives around the Iraq war, which is almost certainly of much bigger negative effect on the world than Alex Jones saying some retarded conspiracy shit.
Yes, it was the big bad evil journalists that lied.
Not Bush.
not Colin Powell
Not Donald Rumsfeld.
You realize there is a world in which many different people are liable, right?
Between all the shit he's hidden in various shell corporations and offshore bank accounts, I wouldn't be surprised if he did have a billion dollars.
Besides, people get hit with fines that far exceed their ability to pay ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Grandmas were getting hit with 6-figure judgements back in the early 2010s before the RIAA figured out that suing random individuals for music piracy was bad publicity. Nintendo got a $10 million settlement and $4.5 million criminal fine from one guy selling devices to hack the Switch.
But once, just once, a fine is high enough to fuck over a rich guy after he did literally everything wrong and invented a few new ways to fuck up, and suddenly it's "Ohhhhhh no, this is a MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE, how DARE the courts hold a rich man accountable for their actions, why won't anyone think of the poor, oppressed rich guy ruining people's lives so he can hawk fake diet pills?" Cry me a fucking river.
Don't you think it's fucked up that it happens at all? But suddenly it's fine when it's against someone you hate?
Not really understanding how this is considered justice.
Nobody’s being made whole from this judgement I suppose. This isn’t the kind of thing where a physical object can be replaced.
What’s your suggestion for how the court should have doled out justice?
Give out the state maximum punishment of $1k for punitive damages in connecticut.. i think worst case is the $300k punitive damages for state of Texas or 1% of net worth if class action.
I actually am not super familiar with the case but I dont think anyone on earth has a liquid $1B unless you are saudi royalty..
But there were (4?) cases right? Each of the families got between 300M and 500M? Hes not the one that killed the babies, what kind of precedence are they trying to make?
The argument against him is that he actively instigated and encouraged a campaign of harrassment and assault on these families through heinous, libelous lies.
Oh, and then he lied to the judge. Really don't do that.
Ok, even if he did all that does that warrant losing everything? At what point should we stop and say "yeah thats excessive"?
When he's destitute. What he did is completely abhorrent, disgusting, and detestable. To target the families of school shooting victims is just unconscionable. He knew he was lying but he did it to profit off of the controversy. He absolutely should lose everything.
Is 1.5B considered destitute? Does the damage he did worth 1.5B dollars? Why is it special to him
You asked "at what point should we stop" and my answer is when he is destitute.
The fine is punitive. Its a punishment and a deterrent to other charlatan shock jocks who would like nothing more than to use the suffering of others as their ramp to fame and fortune. Im not sure its 'special' but he is one of the most famous of these modern day snake oil salesmen and has a massive fan base.
What is the maximum punitive damages limit for a non injury suit in CT again? Or was the lawsuit trying to claim personal injury? Is this the same case where the families tried to sue for every single person he had as a follower? Lol it was like 2 TRILLION dollars they originally asked for. Is that not comically large or is that just considered destitute?
This article is for both CT and TX.
Here is a video explaining what happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSm7sRx-0hA
you seem to not understand the legal aspect of this, which is understandable considering how dense and nebulous the law is and can be. That video breaks it down.
This isnt just a situation of Jones going "hey, maybe this is fake" and getting a billion dollar fine. This fine is in response to YEARS of lies, doxxing, and inciting his fanbase to harass people.
The initial suite being for some massive amount is par for the course in litigation. Parties ALWAYS ask for some larger amount than they expect to get. Its like haggling and the initial amount is almost always meaningless for the reality of the case. Thats just how the system is for now.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I'll look in a bit. Still not sure how years of lying translates to 'get fucked for life' via court dues. If he did bad thing then send him to jail, dont do a transfer of funds thats like some weird lotto shit. I wonder, has a libel case like this ever happened before?
After rewatching the video the fines arent just for the defamation and libel. Its because he basically never fully complied with the courts in multiple ways so eventually the judge just said 'F it' and gave a default judgement which is basically saying 'you give up your right to fight this case'.
Maybe his lawyers shouldn't have accidentally leaked all those text messages showing how undeniably guilty he was to the opposition and then refuse to answer when the opposition asked if it was a mistake and the jury wouldn't have awarded that level of damages.
"They ruined our lives so we should at the very least be able to ruin him financially for the rest of his life". I doubt any of this is going to be paid. Ill set up a butt slapping line a mile out if he pays 1 billion dollars.
He can't get any more juicy loans with that judgement hanging over his head. His companies will be wound down & closed. They will also come after almost everything he's put into his parents names.
And yet you're happy to lecture us on the appropriateness of the outcome. Interesting.
Do i need to know every detail of the case in order to make judgement? Ok sure
Yes lol
👍
You should probably know what the case was about at least. Nobody said AJ killed anyone.