Alex Jones Mulls Strategic Bankruptcy For Media Empire

Media host Alex Jones is being advised by restructuring advisers on how to proceed after being hit with several lawsuits related to statements Jones made following the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre.

Options for Jones’ businesses – including Infowars and Free Speech Systems – include a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which would allow them to continue operating while pausing civil litigation against them, according to Fortune, citing an anonymous source with knowledge of the matter.

Jones and his companies last year were found liable in a defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre after Jones called the shootings a hoax. A trial in Connecticut to determine the size of the damages has yet to take place. He was also found liable in similar proceedings in Texas. -Fortune

Attorneys for Jones claim the defamation lawsuit was filed as part of a strategy to silence Jones’ free speech on matters of public interest, according to court documents.

“[T]his suit is only the latest in Plaintiffs’ efforts to silence those who openly oppose their very public ‘herculean’ efforts to ban the sale of certain weapons, ammunition and accessories, to pass new laws relating to gun registration and to limit free speech,” reads Jones’ motion to dismiss.

Jones was slapped with default judgements in Connecticut and Texas, after he failed to turn over financial information and other documents, which his legal team compared to a “collections action” and a “fishing expedition.”

In March, Jones appeared for a deposition rather than pay hefty fines, after lawyers representing the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims sought his arrest for skipping a court-ordered deposition.

A Connecticut trial to determine the size of damages Jones faces has yet to take place.