Sandy Hook families defamed by Alex Jones want him to pay their legal fees fighting his ‘sham’ bankruptcy

NEWTOWN — From the start, Sandy Hook families who won three defamation cases against Alex Jones in Connecticut and Texas said his effort to seek federal bankruptcy protection was a “calculated stunt” to avoid jury trials that will decide how much in damages he has to pay them.

Now that Jones has been bounced from bankruptcy protection, and three trials to award defamation damages are back on track, families here and in Texas want state judges to make Jones pay their legal costs for the 45 days they had to fight his “sham” filing in federal court.

“(Jones’) counsel knowingly misled the court … and then later embarked on a fraudulent removal for the purpose of disrupting a trial and gaining advantage in litigation through frivolous forum shopping,” wrote the Texas attorneys representing the parents of two slain Sandy Hook children who won two defamation cases against Jones last year. “[T]he bankruptcy scheme was not a legitimate use of the Subchapter V reorganization process, but a calculated stunt to use the bankruptcy court to deny the (families) their day in court and compel claims liquidation.”

In Connecticut, where an FBI agent and eight Sandy Hook families who lost loved ones in the 2012 mass shooting won a third defamation case against Jones last year, lawyers agreed that Jones’ Chapter 11 filing served “no valid bankruptcy purpose,” filing their own motion this week with state Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis.

“[N]ot content to waste this court’s time and ignore this court’s rulings, Jones expanded his bad faith abuse of process to bankruptcy,” wrote the Connecticut families’ attorneys in a motion on Tuesday. “The tactical advantage (Jones) sought was … disruption and delay of the (families) cases and interference with their rights to proceed to trial through abuse of the judicial process.”

The families are not asking for specific costs at the moment but are asking judges to rule that Jones acted in bad faith by seeking bankruptcy protection in mid-April for three of his “shell” companies, without filing for bankruptcy protection himself. The “shell” companies had a combined monthly income of $38,000, according to Jones’ representatives in bankruptcy court. In contrast, Jones himself made at least $76 million in 2019 selling merchandise on his conspiracy broadcasting platform, Infowars, his representatives said.

Jones didn’t file for bankruptcy himself because he feared it would diminish his brand name, which his representative likened to “the Coca-Cola of the conspiracy theory community.”

Should the judges rule Jones filed for bankruptcy in bad faith and consider sanctions, the families’ attorneys would submit their legal costs to the court.

Jones’ attorneys in Texas and Connecticut had not yet filed replies to the families’ motions on Wednesday. In Texas, Jones attorney Andino Reynal did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

In Connecticut, Jones’ legal representation is complicated because his high-profile New Haven attorney, Norm Pattisx, has asked to be dropped from the case. Bellis has said “no” for now — arguing that Pattis and other Jones’ attorneys have either replaced themselves or have asked to be dropped from Jones case 13 times in the last four years.

Bellis plans to hear arguments next week about dropping Pattis from Jones’ case and about an outstanding matter of $37,000 in legal fees the families want Jones to pay for two days Jones disobeyed court orders and failed to show up for depositions.

Jones’ bankruptcy attorneys insisted that his Chapter 11 filing was a bona-fide attempt to stay in business while paying his creditors equitably, noting that Jones had already spent $10 million in legal fees and lost at least $20 million as a result of the Sandy Hook defamation cases.

Jones called the 2012 killing of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely fake with actors.”

A jury trial to award damages to the parents of a slain Sandy Hook boy that was scheduled to begin in Texas one week before Jones filed for bankruptcy and has yet to be rescheduled. A jury trial to award defamation damages in Connecticut is planned for Sept. 6.

Attorneys in Texas and Connecticut said their arguments that Jones filed for bankruptcy in bad faith was supported by a federal official, U.S. Trustee Kevin Epstein, who oversees bankruptcy cases.

“Alex Jones caused the shell company defendants, which he controls, to file sham ‘reorganization’ bankruptcies,” wrote the Connecticut families’ attorneys. “The U.S. Trustee described the bankruptcy as ‘an abuse of the bankruptcy system’ and a ‘scheme of avoiding the burdens of the bankruptcy while reaping its benefits.’”