Justice Department, Sandy Hook families question Infowars bankruptcy

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/21/justice-department-sandy-hook-families-question-infowars-bankruptcy-00027079

The Justice Department and attorneys for families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting are questioning the legitimacy of attempts by right-wing talk show host Alex Jones to put several businesses in his media empire into bankruptcy just as a trial was set to open in Texas, where he faced the possibility of being ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages.

The Justice Department’s Office of the U.S. Trustee told Judge Christopher Lopez the structure of Jones’ filing “may demonstrate these cases are an abuse of the bankruptcy system.” The government submission questioned why Jones had not filed for personal bankruptcy and why another business he controls, Free Speech Systems, was not included in the filings earlier this week.

“Why didn’t Alex Jones or FSS file for bankruptcy relief when Debtors did? They are both defendants in the same litigation as Debtors, and all of them have been found liable in those cases,” attorneys Jayson Ruff and Ha Nguyen wrote for the Justice Department unit. “It appears that Jones intends to leverage the bankruptcy filings of his holding companies to extend the automatic stays of pending litigation against Debtors to him and FSS, while he maintains full control of FSS and its assets going forward. Thus, this Motion … seems to be just the first step for Debtors to carry out Jones’s and FSS’s scheme of avoiding the burdens of bankruptcy while reaping its benefits.”

The bankruptcy declaration also comes as Jones has begun offering himself up to the Justice Department to testify about his knowledge of events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.