Alex Jones' media company has proposed a plan in its bankruptcy case to pay the conspiracy theorist $520,000 a year, while leaving $7 million to $10 million annually to pay off creditors, including relatives of Sandy Hook shooting victims.
The Sandy Hook families won nearly $1.5 billion in lawsuits last year against the Infowars host, for his calling the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, a hoax perpetrated by crisis actors. The families also said they were harassed and threatened by Jones' followers.
But it remains unclear how much money the Sandy Hook families will actually get from Jones and Infowars' parent company, Free Speech Systems. Jones is appealing the verdicts and has said on his show that he has $2 million or less to his name.
Free Speech Systems, owned solely by Jones, filed a proposed reorganization plan Tuesday in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in Houston that predicts it will have $7 million to $10 million annually after expenses to pay creditors from 2023 to 2027. The judge in the case, which was filed last year, would determine who gets that money and how much.
A bankruptcy lawyer for Jones did not respond to an email message Tuesday. Lawyers in Texas and Connecticut for the Sandy Hook families declined to comment.
The new filing shows that the company expects to sell more than $30 million a year in dietary supplements, which Jones hawks on his show and are the company's main source of income.
Meanwhile, Jones and an expected new chief operating officer would each be paid $520,000 per year. The company also would hand out $560,000 to nearly $1.3 million per year in executive incentives and an additional $352,000 to $677,000 in employee bonuses annually.
Free Speech Systems, which has more than 40 employees, would pay $780,000 to $940,000 per year all together to its workers. It would pay another $839,000 to $1 million annually to contract employees.
Jones, who lives and works in Austin, Texas, also has filed for personal bankruptcy.
“I’m officially out of money, personally,” Jones said on Infowars in December. “It’s all going to be filed. It’s all going to be public. And you will see that Alex Jones has almost no cash.”
That contradicted testimony at one of last year’s trials by a forensic economist who said Jones and his company had a combined net worth as high as $270 million.
The Sandy Hook families are contesting parts of Free Speech System’s bankruptcy, including a more than $50 million debt the company says it owns to another creditor, PQPR Holdings Limited LLC. Free Speech Systems buys dietary supplements from PQPR to sell on the Infowars website.
Jones has an ownership stake in PQPR, which is managed by his father, David Jones, according to the filing by Free Speech Systems.
During a hearing related to Jones’ personal bankruptcy case on Wednesday, lawyers for both Jones and his creditors expressed frustration with difficulties in obtaining accurate financial information from Jones that have caused delays in the filing of required court documents.
