The relatives of the Sandy Hook Elementary School murder victims won a victory on Thursday when three organizations affiliated with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars agreed to abandon their Chapter 11 action, Reuters reports.
Jones’ bankruptcy, the families alleged, was a “sinister” effort by Jones to protect his assets from liabilities arising from defamation actions they had won against him.
Following charges that the bankruptcy was filed only as a litigation ploy in the Sandy Hook defamation proceedings, the three holding companies for Jones’ far-right website InfoWars and other items he owns agreed to dismiss the Chapter 11 case. The three firms’ lawyers have refuted the charges.
Jones and his media firms were held guilty in various defamation cases after he erroneously claimed that the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six school workers was a fake. The bankruptcy was filed in April.
The families, who had initially denied Jones’ attempts to settle the cases, and the U.S. Trustee, the bankruptcy watchdog of the United States Department of Justice, made the argument that the Chapter 11 case was filed solely to protect Jones’ personal financial assets before trials to determine how much he owes in damages for the defamation judgments.
The bankruptcy was filed for “a nefarious or dishonorable aim,” according to a lawyer representing the families.
The families recently dismissed the three bankrupt corporations as defendants in the defamation claims, essentially severing the families’ links to the bankruptcy and allowing them to pursue Jones, who did not file for bankruptcy himself.
The United States Trustee, on the other hand, proceeded to pursue the bankruptcy’s dismissal, which a lawyer representing the three businesses agreed to on Thursday.
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