Alex Jones accused of moving money to company run by dad in order to conceal wealth from Sandy Hook families
NEWTOWN, CONNECTICUT: The two lawsuits filed by the parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting against Alex Jones resulted in the conspiracy theorist's legal defeat. Parents had filed a defamation lawsuit against him and his media company, Free Speech Systems, as a result of his repeated claims that the 2012 massacre in Connecticut was fake.
The Infowars host's supporters harassed and intimidated mourning families, and things spiraled out of control, but by the summer of 2020, two of the lawsuits weren't going in Jones favor. The American far-right suffered significant losses as a result of his legal defeat, which led him to decide to transfer millions of dollars out of his media company and into entities that were run by himself, friends, or relatives, according to Washington Post. Rumor has it that the moves may have been taken to prevent the Sandy Hook plaintiffs from accessing those funds.
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'We're not going away': Alex Jones remains defiant after ordered to pay $965M to Sandy Hook families
Nearly $1.5 billion in damages have been awarded by courts to the Sandy Hook families against Jones, including $45.2 million in a Texas lawsuit in August and $965 million in a Connecticut lawsuit two months later. Jones was required to pay an additional $473 million in punitive penalties, including $323 million for legal costs, by order of the Connecticut court on November 10.
Who owns PQPR Holdings?
PQPR Holdings is a business that Jones owns with his parents. The company is run by Jones's dentist father and has a record that states that they spent tens of millions of dollars on supplements that Jones then sold on his radio show, according to financial documents submitted in court by Jones' attorneys.
In court, Jones and his father testified that PQPR was established in 2013 for liability protection as Jones entered the supplement industry and as his father undertook management responsibilities. Jones's accountant testified in court that PQPR was a genuine firm that shared ownership of "setting up supply chains, obtaining required governmental certifications, negotiating with vendors, procuring and paying for product, and overhead," with Jones's primary company.
What did Alex Jones say about being bankrupt?
Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy in Texas in July. Free Speech Systems signed promissory notes, or IOUs, for $55 million between August 2020 and November 2021 to pay off what it said were previous debts to PQPR Holdings, according to Daily Mail. Free Speech Systems' attorney claimed in court that poor bookkeeping was to blame for the debt's unnoticed growth.
Sandy Hook families have intervened in the bankruptcy proceeding, requesting that the judge halt Free Speech Systems' assets and launch an audit of the company's books. In court documents, they assert that Jones took $62 million from the company while burdening it with $65 million in "fabricated" debt.
In a different lawsuit submitted in April to a Texas state court, attorneys for the Sandy Hook families claim that PQPR is "not actually an independent business" and that Jones has used fraudulent transfers to hide his money. They have argued in bankruptcy court that Jones only began moving money out of Free Speech Systems after he faced legal issues with the defamation allegations. "In the middle of this lawsuit, they started documenting debts that had no evidence of existing beforehand," Sandy Hook attorney Avi Moshenberg said in an interview.
Raymond Battaglia, an attorney representing Free Speech Systems states that the family-run company never had "appropriate management and accounting controls," which is why it failed to recognize the debt that had mounted to PQPR as the Infowars brand grew and millions of dollars flowed in.
Battaglia stated in August in the bankruptcy case, "This is kind of like the garage band that became the boy band overnight, and had his girlfriend running the books, and the head roadie being the business manager." PQPR's attorneys have argued in court that they should be paid first since the Sandy Hook plaintiffs would be considered unsecured creditors.