As Alex Jones continues telling his Infowars audience about his money problems and pleads for them to buy his products, his own documents show life is not all that bad — his net worth is around $14 million and his personal spending topped $93,000 in July alone, including thousands of dollars on meals and entertainment.
The conspiracy theorist and his lawyers file monthly financial reports in his personal bankruptcy case, and the latest one has struck a nerve with the families of victims of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. They’re still seeking the $1.5 billion they won last year in lawsuits against Jones and his media company for repeatedly calling the 2012 massacre a hoax on his shows.
“It is disturbing that Alex Jones continues to spend money on excessive household expenditures and his extravagant lifestyle when that money rightfully belongs to the families he spent years tormenting,” said Christopher Mattei, a Connecticut lawyer for the families. “The families are increasingly concerned and will continue to contest these matters in court.”
In an Aug. 29 court filing, lawyers for the families said that if Jones doesn’t reduce his personal expenses to a “reasonable” level, they will ask the bankruptcy judge to bar him from “further waste of estate assets,” appoint a trustee to oversee his spending, or dismiss the bankruptcy case.
On his Infowars show Tuesday, Jones said he’s not doing anything wrong.
“If anything, I like to go to nice restaurants. That is my deal. I like to go on a couple of nice vacations a year, but I think I pretty much have earned that in this fight,” he said, urging his audience to donate money for his legal expenses.
Jones’ spending in July, which was up from nearly $75,000 in April, included his monthly $15,000 payment to his wife, Erika Wulff Jones — payouts called “fraudulent transfers” by lawyers for the Sandy Hook families. Jones says they’re required under a prenuptial agreement.
Also that month, Jones spent $7,900 on housekeeping and dished out more than $6,300 for meals and entertainment, not including groceries, which totaled nearly $3,400 — or roughly $850 per week.
A second home, his Texas lake house, cost him nearly $6,700 that month, including maintenance and property taxes, while his vehicles and boats sapped another $5,600, including insurance, maintenance and fuel.
Sandy Hook families won nearly the $1.5 billion in judgments against Jones last year in lawsuits over repeated promotion of a false theory that the school shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, never happened.
Relatives of the victims testified at the trials about being harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, who sent threats and even confronted the grieving families in person, accusing them of being “crisis actors” whose children never existed.
Collecting the astronomical sum, though, is proving to be a long battle.
When Jones filed for bankruptcy, it put a hold on the families’ efforts to collect the lawsuit judgments in state courts as a federal bankruptcy court judge decides how much money Jones can actually pay his creditors.
Lawyers for the families have said in court that it has been difficult for them to track Jones’ finances because of the numerous companies he owns and multiple deals among those corporate entities.
Meanwhile, Jones is still broadcasting. He and his media company, Free Speech Systems, are seeking court approval for a new contract that would pay him $1.5 million a year plus incentive bonuses, up from his current $520,000-a-year salary. The company also filed for bankruptcy protection last year.
On Infowars, Jones said Tuesday that he is more than $1 million in debt. If he gets the salary increase, he said, he would be left with about $300,000 a year after paying his legal bills.
“With all my expenses and things, that’s nothing,” he said. “And I don’t care about that. I’m wearing a shirt I bought, like, eight years ago, and I love it to death.”
Financial documents filed by Jones and his bankruptcy lawyers say his personal net worth is around $14 million. His assets include a home worth $2.6 million, a $2.2 million ranch, a $1.8 million lake house, a $500,000 rental property, and four vehicles and two boats worth more than $330,000 in total. Jones had nearly $800,000 in his bank accounts on July 31, court documents show.
Free Speech Systems, meanwhile, continues to rake in cash from the sale nutritional supplements, survival supplies and other merchandise that Jones hawks on Infowars, bringing in nearly $2.5 million in revenue in July alone, according to Jones’ financial reports, which he signed under penalty of perjury. The company’s expenses totaled about $2.4 million that month.
Meanwhile, some of the Sandy Hook families have another pending lawsuit claiming Jones hid millions of dollars in an attempt to protect his wealth. One of Jones’ lawyers has called the allegations “ridiculous.”
Jones, who is appealing the $1.5 billion in lawsuit awards against him, sat for a deposition in his bankruptcy case Tuesday and Wednesday in his hometown of Austin, Texas, where Infowars is based.
On his show Tuesday, he denied financial wrongdoing.
“I’m not Lex Luthor … when it comes to finances and life,” he said. “I mean, I’m a straight-up guy. I’m a do-good in Mayberry RFD.”
(AP)
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7 Responses
Sandy Hook wasn’t investigated enough. Nor was Boston marathon. Obama s small presence
1.5 billion is completely ridiculous, and is meant to silence, not provide justice.
Not to mention, that in a country with functional freedom of speech, questioning official narratives should be permitted and celebrated.
Seeing that Mrs Jones get a monthly payment of $15,000 a month makes her staying with him somewhat understandable. That’s a net annual income of $180,000 for his wife. He probably writes of the cost of keeping her as a business expense.
To clarify my point about free speech, Sandy Hook was not a conspiracy, and in an ideal world it should be prohibited to say these things, and in general, Judaism is not a free speech religion. But if there already is free speech, and any shmuck can go up and insult Hashem or the Torah, then at the very least it should be universal and we should be also allowed to say things that will make others upset.
Also there should be rational and equal punishment and enforcement. 22 years for attending a riot cannot coexist with six months for child molestation.
Tzedikis, what’s there to investigate? We know exactly what happened in both cases.
Doom, there is no right to defame people. Alex Jones made specific factual claims about the plaintiffs, which were not true, and which harmed them. He must pay for that.
> Milhouse
As I understand the way this is suppose-to work, the amount of the award is suppose to be related to the amount of damage suffered by the alleged victim. But what really went wrong here is the judge unilaterally issued his verdict to convict Jones before Jones even had his turn for discovery, and of course before any trial actually took place on the merits of the case. Jones was literally denied the right to even mention his own claim of innocence during the penalty phase (which is the only phase that actually went to trial – as mentioned there was no trial on the main issue of guilt or innocence).
So whether or not Jones is guilty (and for that matter guilty of what specifically in legal terms), Jones never had his “day in court”. And I don’t watch Alex Jones, so without a proper trial displaying evidence on both sides, I have no reason to trust anything the judge or media have to say.
George, Jones had his day in court; he chose not to show up. Therefore a default judgment was entered. That is all.
The award reflects both the great harm the victims suffered, and also punitive damages for his extreme cruelty and recklessness.