Sandy Hook Families May Not Buy InfoWars’ Sudden Bankruptcy Filing

Amid the news that InfoWars and several related companies have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, one group of people may not be convinced that conspiracy king Alex Jones’ company assets have suddenly dried up: Sandy Hook families themselves. In early April, six Sandy Hook parents suing Jones in Texas filed a petition under the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, accusing Jones and InfoWars of “conspir[ing] to divert his assets to shell companies owned by insiders like his parents, his children, and himself.” The people and entities they say InfoWars transferred money to include Jones’ mother and father, a variety of oddly-named holding companies, and a trust bearing Jones’ initials. 

In the Sandy Hook parents’ April 6 filing in Travis County District Court, the parents, represented by attorneys Avi Moshenberg, Mark Bankston, and Cordt Akers, assert that Jones “transferred millions of dollars from his fortune to these insiders—whom he apparently thought were beyond reach.” 

In the filing, the Sandy Hook parents say that InfoWars started diverting assets in 2018, as soon as they filed their defamation suit against him for claiming that the mass murder of their children was “a giant hoax.” (Jones and InfoWars were also sued by a group of parents in Connecticut in a separate action; he lost both cases by default after the courts said InfoWars failed to respond to basic discovery requests.)

Between 2018 and 2021, the filing states, Jones made a salary of $600,000 a year, in addition to personally drawing about $18 million from Free Speech Systems, InfoWars’ parent company. Yet Free Speech Systems operated at a loss, they assert. Meanwhile, not long after a court ruling allowed the defamation cases to proceed, “a company named PQPR filed a UCC Financing Statement claiming a security interest in essentially everything Free Speech Systems owns,” according to the filing. In the same transaction, PQPR claimed Free Speech Systems owed them a $54 million debt from selling PQPR’s products on their website: bumper stickers, survival kits, water filtration systems, and systems for freeze-drying food. (In essence, that’s most of what’s included in the InfoWars Life store that has long been a central piece of how the company makes money, minus all the dodgy dietary and nutritional supplements.)

But PQPR is not, the Sandy Hook plaintiffs state, an independent business entity. “It’s an insider of the Jones Debtors,” they write. “It is owned and operated directly or indirectly by Jones, his parents, and his children through an alphabet soup of shell entities like JLJR Holdings Limited LLC; JLJR Holdings, LLC; PLJR Holdings, LLC; PQPR Holdings, LLC; AEJ Holdings, LLC; and AEJ Trust 2018. And the income PQPR receives—including from sources like the Jones Debtors—goes to Alex Jones and these Jones Transferees.”

After the defamation cases began in earnest, the plaintiffs alleged, the InfoWars companies involved in the lawsuits began “transferring large sums of money” to the people and entities listed above, claiming at one point that they were part of a “financial disentanglement” between PQPR and Free Speech Systems. But the Sandy Hook plaintiffs say they’re actually, in their words, “ transfers designed to siphon off the Jones Debtors’ assets to make them judgment-proof.” 

InfoWars’ attorneys haven’t yet responded to the filing accusing the company of doing three-card monte with their money. And, for that matter, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection also doesn’t mean that InfoWars’ assets won’t be examined; if anything, bankruptcy proceedings can involve a fairly microscopic inspection of a company. 

We’ve contacted an attorney for Jones and InfoWars for comment and will update if we hear back. In a brief statement, plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Bankston told Motherboard, “None of Mr. Jones’ ridiculous tricks have worked in the past. This one will fare no better.”