Alex Jones must pay $1.5 billion damages to school shooting parents despite bankruptcy

Conspiracy theorist and podcast host Alex Jones cannot use his personal bankruptcy to escape paying at least $1.1 billion in defamation damages stemming from his repeated mistruths on the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, a US bankruptcy judge ruled on October 19.

As reported by the New York Times, bankruptcy can be used to wipe out debts and legal judgments, but not if they result from “willful or malicious injury” caused by the debtor, according to a decision by the US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston, Texas.

Courts in Connecticut and Texas have already ruled that Jones intentionally defamed relatives of school children killed in the mass shooting, and they have ordered Jones to pay $1.5 billion in damages.