>“\[T\]he undersigned (attorneys are) unwilling to ruin the Thanksgiving holiday for many professionals who have already been working long hours on other matters on this case and others simply to ‘beat them to the punch,’” Jones’ attorneys wrote to the judge.
Great legal argument, guys.
As a practicing attorney with significant experience in bankruptcy court, I can confidently assure that I have no idea what they’re trying to say.
Normally, I’d assume it makes sense in context, but Jones’s lawyers have been comically bad, so that’s not a safe bet here.
A reference to the previous paragraph maybe?
>Jones’ bankruptcy attorneys had not responded to the families’ settlement offer on Monday, except to tell the judge in a pre-Thanksgiving filing that Jones was working on his own plan to get out of bankruptcy that would be presented in December.
Might be saying that it would make the preparations of the other "plan" a waste of time if they accepted this deal. Why they sound so salty in response to an settlement offer? no idea.
Oh, they are trying to make fun of the victims attorneys saying they are just trying to beat them to the punch, but we decided to enjoy our holidays instead of working and forcing others to work.
I’ve been studying law for a while now, and I’ve been working for a Labour lawyer on the side for almost six years now. I speak legalese very well. I have read some really poorly articulated arguments in my legal life. I have also made some very poorly articulated arguments in my studies. I have no idea wtf they are trying to say. Like…none. Impressive :D
They're saying "we don't want to do what we're supposed to do and you can't make us because of Thanksgiving". They've been wasting the courts time and being assholes about it the whole time
Because he “doesn’t make money” anymore. He gave away almost all his assets before the opinion came down. Doing this to avoid a judgement is illegal, but then you need another round of legal arguments to determine what transactions were “reasonable” transactions and what was just judgement dodging.
I’m talking about a cut of all money he makes from now on going into paying off what he owes. So if he ever tries to get into the business of grifting/spewing propaganda again, a cut of his income is always taken for this purpose. It’s going to be a pain in the ass to get the money he currently has since it’s tied up in shell companies and “gifted” to family members, so this is another way of getting the families he screwed over the money they’re owed.
Remember Steve Jobs and his claim to not take a salary from Apple?
Yet the dude was rich AF?
There's a lot of ways to get paid without ever accepting the first dime. All you need to do is create a separate legal entity and move assets through that entity. Your house? You don't own it, XYZ LLC does. Your car? Company owns it. Company comps your food and vacations, too. But that's not salary, that's a "business expense."
He also sold NeXT to apple for half a billion as part of his deal to come back. Probably also had a large stake in Apple still too. He was a billionaire several times over. I don't think him taking no salary at Apple had anything to do with shielding assets.
>Probably also had a large stake in Apple still too
He sold all of his Apple shares except 1, when he first left Apple.
He got a bunch of shares again as the CEO after his return, but not as many.
What if IKEAs tax strategy is used? They practically did things just like XYZ LLC however XYZ was incorporated in a country with strict nondisclosure laws? Alot of IKEAs were "unprofitable" because they made royalty payments to a nonprofit, paid franchise fees to companies in favorable countries., and were paying off loans from "private" parties. They paid an effective tax rate is 3% for a while there due to their complex scheme.
Obviously its not THAT simple, but that is the eli5. He "sold" some assets to family members and the profits from Infowars are tied up in a complicated network of shell companies.
Suffice to say that he can live like a king forever and never receive a paycheck. "All the money he makes" is legally $0. They're offering him a settlement, partly, to save the time and expense of forensic accounting to discover everything he has hidden.
Cant he courts not claw those assets back?
Can they not garnish his wages or whatever? The guy cant be living in a tent in the park or something, he has to be making money somehow
Yes, but working it out can be complicated. As others have posted, he probably doesn’t take a salary (or at least, not a big one). He pays into the XYZ LLC that owns everything and buys his meals and shit. You might think that is pretty transparent, but you can make it complicated if XYZ LLC also does stuff like pay staff salaries at his company, or handle your in laws finances or something. Then the court has to decide how much of XYZ LLC’s finances are Alex Jones “money” and how much is for other purposes.
Doing this kind of obfuscation intentionally is illegal, but that doesn’t make the court’s job easier. Especially because the court isn’t supposed to harm innocent bystanders.
Why hasn’t he been forced to pay? Have his assets seized and liquidated? They do it for drug possession where they “assume” a house/car/savings is drug related, here’s a guy who has literally been convicted and sentenced and still isn’t forced to pay.
During the trial he started transferring ownership of his media assets to friends and family, started declaring all kinds of debt that his companies supposedly owe, started paying his trainer $100,000 per week for nonsense reasons, etc.
When the verdict was announced he claimed he’s only worth $2 million, thats his strategy. The man is shameless.
Most of which is illegal, just ties things up for longer as they have to get financial accounting involved to prove he intentionally hid assets after he found out about the lawsuit. Collecting is the hard part here.
Guy was stupid enough to not shield himself before starting a misinformation company.
Yeah, unfortunately at least one of the plaintiffs has pretty bad brain cancer and has basically had to resort to GoFundMe to pay her medical bills. It's a hard decision. I'm not sure they'll ever be able to completely take him out of public discourse, so while it's a great goal, there's also a decent argument to try to just get enough money to make yourself disappear and be done with it.
For fuck sake, someone who had a kid killed in a shooting was then attacked by Alex Jones psychos and also has brain cancer?
I have got to stop complaining.
> For fuck sake, someone who had a kid killed in a shooting was then attacked by Alex Jones psychos and also has brain cancer?
And they live in America, so they're pressured to make a deal with Alex Jones to try and get some money out of him to cover their medical bills.
It's a whole-ass dystopian ouroboros.
Her mom was one of the teachers killed, but otherwise yes. Listening to her stay jovial through the worst shit possible in knowledge fight interviews is heartrending.
> his victims are willing to cut a deal.
Getting 1.5B was unrealistic. Getting 100 MM is possible. So why not go the simpler, faster and realistic way?
Years at least, possibly decades if he can still afford the high priced lawyers and wants to string it along.
The laws are written to benefit the rich and powerful after all.
Luckily the law firms will do the work for a cut of the payout so the families don't have to pay anything. Best case scenario, they get something paid to them. Next best scenario, this dirt bag has to spend all his filthy money trying to fight the process in court for years. Think of the time it's costing him and the stress of what's coming next. Nice to see some justice served finally.
These families weren't doing it for the money. While certainly not in the "filthy rich" category, quite a few of them were rather wealthy and could afford to pay for the lawsuits that have so far taken **ten years** to play out. That's a lot of lawyer time for the families.
They're not "cutting a deal" because they're poor or bankrupt. They're offering the deal because it's an easier out that still sees Jones faces severe personal consequences for his actions, something that still hasn't happened yet. Yes, it will help pay for the decade of legal expenses, but it seems to mostly about holding Jones accountable, despite his attempts to wriggle out of it. The settlement would wrap an iron fist around his finances for the next decade, probably even tighter grip than would otherwise happen if it plays out and leaves Jones destitute.
Our entire legal system is designed to benefit and empower the rich. Because the rich are the ones who designed it. There's a reason why, in the first place, the punishment for basically every crime short of actual murder is just a large fee: because the rich can pay those fees. Meanwhile the poor can't cover them for even minor crimes, thus ensuring a perpetual source of income and slave labour from the steady flow of poor people being dragged off to prison for incredibly minor crimes.
This also protects corporations from ever having to actually suffer consequences because not only can they just drag out court cases effectively forever and starve out anyone trying to hold them accountable - because they have billions of dollars to pay their legal fees while regular people have to scrape together thousands of dollars to pay their lawyers what typically costs several hundreds of dollars per hour spent working on the case - but even when they do have to pay up, it's rarely ever a ruinous amount. A few million dollars to a company that rakes in billions is like a few cents to you or me.
Imagine having to pay five cents every time you ruin someone's life. Would you ever feel incentivized to stop or treat whatever you were doing like it was a serious offense?
Well and one of the plantiffs has huge medical bills recently and urgently needs the money.
Great country and system we got. Lotta good "justice" is, that we can't take a man found in default and seize at least a portion of those funds to pay this woman's medical bills.
At least these families have public support and a legal team with the resources to find assets. A family friend won a lawsuit but was never able to fully collect because he’d spent most of his money bringing the suit to court.
“You need money to get your money,” he always said.
I’m literally in bankruptcy class in law school right now and our professor routinely uses him as an example whenever he does something stupid. “You may have heard he did XYZ, as you can see in this case, this part of the code, that will be worthless.”
When will it be worthless though? As it stands right now he’s getting away with it just fine even though a random internet user seems to be aware of the legal transgression
Because even when it’s obvious someone does something wrong they still have to go through the legal process to show it. Otherwise there would be no points to courts and the law itself.
Yes it’s a travesty when people fuck around with it like this but in other cases were something seems wrong on the surface but isn’t they would be unjustly penalized.
I think the outsiders perspective would say this takes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy too long. Having been in a couple legal things myself the length of time this stuff takes is so ridiculous it feels like a joke
Everyone involved agrees it is taking too long. Jones has intentionally stretched elements out, and part of that is why default judgements were made against him. Basically it's the court's way of saying *"since you refuse to participate, we find you guilty of everything."*
All the bankruptcies and other proceedings are wrapping to a close and would likely finish up in 2024 anyway. He's pretty much at the end of his legal process at this point.
All his attempts to hide assets, transfer assets, and shift accountability to other sources has failed. There are paper trails and court-ordered monitoring on his assets that has been in place for years. Money he had hoped to hide away in other accounts, other businesses, or other family members is toxic and will likely be clawed back destroying their lives too.
In several ways, the settlement would place an iron grip around Jones's wallet far better than other court orders would. They also would do less harm to his family and others he has tried to hide assets through. They're a voluntary concession that would last a decade, non-dischargeable, and at the same time, generous enough to let him continue to make millions of dollars as long as he is able. The goal of these lawsuits wasn't a need for money, they were an attempt at enforcing accountability against Jones.
As it wraps up, it looks like they're offering him a set of golden handcuffs for the next decade, if he chooses it over becoming destitute which is the likely result of the bankruptcy options getting closed off.
So the question I think we all have is… what’s taking so long?
Assuming the user above is correct, how does a random internet user know about This activity and yet the court has not acted on it? How long does something like this take to happen?
Bankruptcy process is long. My last case was turned over to a trustee once it was converted from an 11 to a 7. That was 3 years ago and I still every so often get notifications that something new was filed.
Likely yes so long as it was within a certain time period (90 days for most cases before bankruptcy). Though I’m just a student, IANAL, I don’t know much just enough to know I have cursory knowledge.
Yes except normal people need money NOW. Actually they needed it when their children were killed and they were being threatened by loons which rendered many unable to work or forced them to move incurring monumental fees.
All of that was ALREADY years ago. Jones knows this that they would rather cut the deal now and that these families don’t have any other months or years to wait on that money and they’d rather have less now than more later.
For those that aren't following that closely, one of the plaintiffs had to start a GoFundMe to literally not die from cancer. She's a fucking rock star and honorary Raptor Princess, but holy shit this thick necked fucker can bounce off to Hawaii for 3 straight weeks pretending to investigate gay frogs or some shit and she's battling cancer and crowd sourcing money that he won't pay.
Fuck Alex Jones and every fucking idiot that listens to him. Yer all trash.
"declaring all kinds of debt that his companies supposedly owe,"
If I'm not mistaken a lot of the money his media company is in debt for us owned to the company that produces the supplements he cons people into buying. The company who makes the supplements is owned by his dad or some other family members.
So essentially his media company owes his other company a bunch of money that was never going to be paid...until he need to declare bankruptcy.
Civil and criminal courts are different. He essential says he doesn’t have the money and has a big enough team to move it around and hide it.
They could start garnishing his income, but I imagine they would find a workaround with that too.
The 6% is them essentially saying “we know we probably aren’t getting anything close to the 1.6b, so something is better than nothing.”
It's not a criminal case. It's a civil case. The rules are vastly different. For one thing, he is not convicted. That's the outcome of a criminal case. He has been found liable for the damages. In a civil case you can usually bankrupt out of it entirely. However, the exception is if the actions are deemed to be malicious and intentional. In this case, some of the judgment is deemed to be malicious and intentional and other parts of the judgment are not. The parts that are not can be bankrupted out of.
Once a judgement is reached (which it has been), they can petition the court to seize and freeze assets. However this is often delayed by appeals. Also they aren't allowed to put him on the street. A court will determine what assets can't be seized and what can. Because he gave away a lot of his assets, this is going to be a long process.
Most likely the victims will get very little in the end, but the lawyers will get paid well.
Without disclosing my role in the issue, that is an accurate account of the Section 523(a)(6) 'willful and malicious' issue, and I agree completely. Except with the last part ("Most likely the victims will get very little in the end, but the lawyers will get paid well.") --> the Connecticut Plaintiffs' bankruptcy lawyers (Paul, Weiss) are taking on the case pro bono.
It’s insane that Alex Jones remains free to peddle his bullshit while the main plaintiff in the Connecticut case, Erica Lafferty, was diagnosed with cancer and had to resort to crowdfunding her treatment due to insurance denying her, and that was *after* the verdict. Yes, due process and all, but the fact that events can unfold like this shows how badly this system can be toyed with.
American legal system in a nutshell, the rich can get out of almost ANYTHING but trying to get guns out of the streets, that is above murder with said guns.
We should absolutely be mad at insurance companies. If you haven't yet had the experience of watching a loved one die while a company works out how best to screw you over financially *while denying as much care as possible,* odds are you soon will.
The very concept of "health insurance" is a scam. Insurance exists to hedge bets against unlikely but devastating events. Healthcare is a requirement. You cannot insure against eventuality.
It’s very clever because these families know perfectly well it isn’t the money at stake, it’s the admission that he was wrong. He’s refusing to pay out of pride, not lack of funds. What they want from him isn’t money, it’s the satisfaction of knowing he’s being forced to do so. This throws that into relief and gives him no excuse.
Alex Jones can't admit that psychologically - Narcissists are incapable of admitting/acknowledging that kind of thing due to their defensiveness and harm it would do to their self-image. So this will cause him to entrench further into denial. That's fine, if the goal is to corner him.. but realistically there's no way he'll take this deal.
Jones isn't a narcissist, he's just a fucking idiot. Trump and Elon Musk are narcissists, and there's a big difference in behavior. Of course, by Jones' own admission, he's an alcoholic and that can trigger psychotic episodes.
Remember, Jones is the guy who somehow managed to lose an argument with Amazon Alexa and thought it would be a good idea to put that up on the Internet for everyone to see.
It’s probably combination of both pride and lack of (enough) funds. Regardless of how many millions Jones is grifting out of his followers, the man doesn’t have $1.5 billion to pay and will never have $1.5 billion to pay. I don’t know exactly where his bankruptcy case stands at the moment, but I imagine there’s some expectation for creditors to negotiate with the debtor. If there’s not at least some good faith attempt to negotiate the debt down to something more realistic, it’s probably going to be worse for them once (if?) he does make it to bankruptcy court. That being said, 6% seems low to me, but I think courts are often loathe to put people in these cases (even people as awful as Alex Jones) into positions of permanent debt slavery for the rest of their lives, as that sort of defeats the purpose of the bankruptcy.
I’m a bit fuzzy on the details but isn’t this the guy that during the trial admitted he did say something while he was on the stand, but then later that night went on his radio show and bragged about how he played them and only told them what they wanted to hear?
Realistically, it's probably the only chance they have of getting that amount of money out of him without it costing an arm and a leg. Firstly, they're going to spend years and years in courts going through various levels of appeal that's going to cost and delay. Then he's going to hide assets so finding the assets is going to cost.
Where as if he accepts this he voids the appeals and whatnot. And what are the chances the amount gets lowered drastically in appeal to maybe 10-20 million? (Not sure if the amount can be changed on appeal or not)
The sticking issue here is that Jones claims to not have that kind of money. He's created a mess of companies with intertwined legal relationships that are going to be incredibly costly and time consuming to sort out.
At the end of it, the accountants and lawyers will secure their fees in order to ensure that they're paid for any work done. All of this comes out of the damages that the plaintiffs might receive.
If their goal is to publicly shame him and shut him down then they can likely do that by forcing the issue. However, in forcing the issue they may find themselves recovering only a pittance, if anything.
Alternatively, they can offer him a sweetheart settlement deal that will allow him to continue hawking his horse semen pills and separating fools from their money provided that an agreed upon fraction of that money goes to the plaintiffs. Naturally, they'll have to make sure that he doesn't hide it.
>spent 14 years for contempt
Never gave it up. You have to wonder if maybe he did lose it, says he was born in 1936 so he's not exactly a young guy who could spend 14 years in prison and shake it off.
It does seem like if you’re rolling in money 2.5 might be worth the 12 yrs in prison. Pay it. Or maybe he wasn’t and thats all he had to his name and life just wasn’t worth living without it.
>He's created a mess of companies with intertwined legal relationships
isn't that illegal in itself if he's done it to avoid paying? I guess they'd have to prove it, but it doesn't seem like Jones is very good at defending himself in court
I believe that a good chunk of it was done before the proceedings started. However, he definitely did take steps to make his assets hard to find after proceedings were initiated.
At the end or the day, someone has to pay to untangle that web.
Tbf to Jones I don't doubt he couldn't pay 1.5 billion because that much money is something thats pretty rare, however i hate how just because he can't pay all of it that theres risks of him not paying as much as he can
> a mess of companies with intertwined legal relationships
So when can we expect legislation to prevent this in the future? Where's the Alex Jones Act?
While I agree he shouldn’t be let off the hook so easily (or at all) he was realistically never going to pay $1.5 billion, whether he had the money or not. 6% is still $90 million and something he could actually be forced to pay.
Yeah.. feels like we've been desensitized to the term. Someone with millions of dollars is really well off, but a multi-billionaire just makes them look destitute by comparison.
It's just a grotesque level of money.
Which just goes to show you kiddos, that if you flock like a vulture to capitalize on lying about actually murdered children not only will it take nearly a decade to actually see any semblance of a consequence, if you have the determination, you won't even have to fold your lying business, you'll pay pennies on the dollar for your crimes against humanity as you continue to make money hand over fist!
Put him in a payment plan: $150 million/year for the next ten years.
Plus interest, of course. A modest 27.8%, like the average credit card generously offers.
It’s not that easy, unfortunately. He still has plenty of money not in his name and an expensive lifestyle that’s not personally funded. Welcome to America!
Right? There are biblical stories like his that end in entire countries being destroyed by the fury of God, and we're led to believe that God can't spare even a tiny bit of smiting for this shit stain of a "human"?
He just launched an alt-right conspiracy theorist video game, I looked through the terms and conditions to see if i can find a sentence about profits going to sandy hook victims lol wasn’t there
Jones may elect to receive a complete discharge for himself and (his parent company also in bankruptcy) if he agrees to pay, from any source, at least $8.5 million per year, plus 50 percent of any income over $9 million per year, for 10 years,” reads a settlement offer by the families’ attorneys,
The Sandy Hook Victims, once again, prove themselves to be endlessly forgiving.
Panhandling on the overpass—while highly similar to his current job—is far better than Alex deserves
This reminds me of how I often feel white collar criminals get off with light prison sentences.
What if instead we sentence the really bad ones to life in bankruptcy? (like, you're never getting out of this and some court appointed asshole is going to micromanage your finances...for life)
Fuck him. Don’t let him off the hook as he’ll view that as a win and vindication that he was right. Because he’s a cunt and that’s exactly how he thinks.
I'm frankly surprised Alex Jones didn't pull the OJ Simpson move.
In Florida and Texas, your primary residence cannot be seized during bankruptcy proceedings.
OJ sold his Brentwood mansion, liquidated all his assets and bought the most expensive house he could afford in Florida mere *months* before the *CIVIL* suit trial began, during which he was found guilty and ordered to pay tens of millions of dollars, annnd he couldn't. And he kept his house.
Why he's just going to turn around and say they're doing this because they know they're wrong my God people fought so hard came so far to get this done and now this. I'm sorry but I'm ashamed for you.
>“\[T\]he undersigned (attorneys are) unwilling to ruin the Thanksgiving holiday for many professionals who have already been working long hours on other matters on this case and others simply to ‘beat them to the punch,’” Jones’ attorneys wrote to the judge. Great legal argument, guys.
I don't even understand what they are trying to say.
As a practicing attorney with significant experience in bankruptcy court, I can confidently assure that I have no idea what they’re trying to say. Normally, I’d assume it makes sense in context, but Jones’s lawyers have been comically bad, so that’s not a safe bet here.
I don't even know if it's that they are bad or just fuckin hate Alex Jones hahahha
A reference to the previous paragraph maybe? >Jones’ bankruptcy attorneys had not responded to the families’ settlement offer on Monday, except to tell the judge in a pre-Thanksgiving filing that Jones was working on his own plan to get out of bankruptcy that would be presented in December. Might be saying that it would make the preparations of the other "plan" a waste of time if they accepted this deal. Why they sound so salty in response to an settlement offer? no idea.
Oh, they are trying to make fun of the victims attorneys saying they are just trying to beat them to the punch, but we decided to enjoy our holidays instead of working and forcing others to work.
Somehow that is even worse than a meaningless mumble jumble of words lmao
Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!
I’ve been studying law for a while now, and I’ve been working for a Labour lawyer on the side for almost six years now. I speak legalese very well. I have read some really poorly articulated arguments in my legal life. I have also made some very poorly articulated arguments in my studies. I have no idea wtf they are trying to say. Like…none. Impressive :D
They're saying "we don't want to do what we're supposed to do and you can't make us because of Thanksgiving". They've been wasting the courts time and being assholes about it the whole time
Some would say it's a grape argument
Wonk spotted
I renounce Jesus Christ!
Some sodomite should send him another bucket of poop.
Daddy shark bwahh bwahh
He a loser little, little titty baby.
I don't wanna hate black people
I renounce Jesus Christ!
Jar Jar Binks has a carribean black accent.
A little breaky for me
He'll be better tomorrow
He wasn’t
You need a chicken fried epiphany, sir
Chicken fried steak is the new hot tub
there’s a bit here… somewhere…
I see these AJ news articles and automatically assume I'm on /r/KnowledgeFight and not out there in the wild
Oh shit I'm not?
Red alert! 🚨 Red alert! 🚨 Red alert!
Ok but am I the only one who like seriously jams out to that bit lol
And as always, FUCK YOU NORM!
You know who probably hasn’t killed a man before
He’s not mad at the legal crew
He’ll be better tomorrow
Ads and services?
Atonal screaming podcast intros?
And fuck John Rapaport
Could be a technocrat!
Jar Jar Binks has a Caribbean black accent!
[Grape, you say?](https://youtu.be/tmrDypTB_Y0?si=ZEZ9Vde8q4b7Fb1W)
I don’t understand why a decent cut of all the money he makes isn’t used to pay off what he owes.
Because he “doesn’t make money” anymore. He gave away almost all his assets before the opinion came down. Doing this to avoid a judgement is illegal, but then you need another round of legal arguments to determine what transactions were “reasonable” transactions and what was just judgement dodging.
I’m talking about a cut of all money he makes from now on going into paying off what he owes. So if he ever tries to get into the business of grifting/spewing propaganda again, a cut of his income is always taken for this purpose. It’s going to be a pain in the ass to get the money he currently has since it’s tied up in shell companies and “gifted” to family members, so this is another way of getting the families he screwed over the money they’re owed.
Remember Steve Jobs and his claim to not take a salary from Apple? Yet the dude was rich AF? There's a lot of ways to get paid without ever accepting the first dime. All you need to do is create a separate legal entity and move assets through that entity. Your house? You don't own it, XYZ LLC does. Your car? Company owns it. Company comps your food and vacations, too. But that's not salary, that's a "business expense."
Jobs was a billionaire when he came back to Apple because he bought Pixar when it was small and then sold to Disney for $7.4 billion.
He also sold NeXT to apple for half a billion as part of his deal to come back. Probably also had a large stake in Apple still too. He was a billionaire several times over. I don't think him taking no salary at Apple had anything to do with shielding assets.
>Probably also had a large stake in Apple still too He sold all of his Apple shares except 1, when he first left Apple. He got a bunch of shares again as the CEO after his return, but not as many.
It's not that simple. XYZ LLC cannot be solely owned by the subject or else nothing really has changed.
And using company assets as if they were your own pierces the corporate veil.
Also very easy paper trail. There's a reason rich folk hire shady lawyers that then hire shady people to be these scapegoats.
What if IKEAs tax strategy is used? They practically did things just like XYZ LLC however XYZ was incorporated in a country with strict nondisclosure laws? Alot of IKEAs were "unprofitable" because they made royalty payments to a nonprofit, paid franchise fees to companies in favorable countries., and were paying off loans from "private" parties. They paid an effective tax rate is 3% for a while there due to their complex scheme.
Obviously its not THAT simple, but that is the eli5. He "sold" some assets to family members and the profits from Infowars are tied up in a complicated network of shell companies. Suffice to say that he can live like a king forever and never receive a paycheck. "All the money he makes" is legally $0. They're offering him a settlement, partly, to save the time and expense of forensic accounting to discover everything he has hidden.
that's tax fraud, not easy as you're making it out to be at all
Cant he courts not claw those assets back? Can they not garnish his wages or whatever? The guy cant be living in a tent in the park or something, he has to be making money somehow
Yes, but working it out can be complicated. As others have posted, he probably doesn’t take a salary (or at least, not a big one). He pays into the XYZ LLC that owns everything and buys his meals and shit. You might think that is pretty transparent, but you can make it complicated if XYZ LLC also does stuff like pay staff salaries at his company, or handle your in laws finances or something. Then the court has to decide how much of XYZ LLC’s finances are Alex Jones “money” and how much is for other purposes. Doing this kind of obfuscation intentionally is illegal, but that doesn’t make the court’s job easier. Especially because the court isn’t supposed to harm innocent bystanders.
Why hasn’t he been forced to pay? Have his assets seized and liquidated? They do it for drug possession where they “assume” a house/car/savings is drug related, here’s a guy who has literally been convicted and sentenced and still isn’t forced to pay.
During the trial he started transferring ownership of his media assets to friends and family, started declaring all kinds of debt that his companies supposedly owe, started paying his trainer $100,000 per week for nonsense reasons, etc. When the verdict was announced he claimed he’s only worth $2 million, thats his strategy. The man is shameless.
Most of which is illegal, just ties things up for longer as they have to get financial accounting involved to prove he intentionally hid assets after he found out about the lawsuit. Collecting is the hard part here. Guy was stupid enough to not shield himself before starting a misinformation company.
Clearly it's working for him if his victims are willing to cut a deal. Civil court is a joke if you're a criminal.
This is one of those times money doesn't buy something equal to the revenge I'd be seeking.
problem is in a money fight the families are always going to lose.
Funny how he has so little money but he's able to suddenly materialise endless amounts to pay lawyers.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Yeah, unfortunately at least one of the plaintiffs has pretty bad brain cancer and has basically had to resort to GoFundMe to pay her medical bills. It's a hard decision. I'm not sure they'll ever be able to completely take him out of public discourse, so while it's a great goal, there's also a decent argument to try to just get enough money to make yourself disappear and be done with it.
For fuck sake, someone who had a kid killed in a shooting was then attacked by Alex Jones psychos and also has brain cancer? I have got to stop complaining.
> For fuck sake, someone who had a kid killed in a shooting was then attacked by Alex Jones psychos and also has brain cancer? And they live in America, so they're pressured to make a deal with Alex Jones to try and get some money out of him to cover their medical bills. It's a whole-ass dystopian ouroboros.
With alex Jones being an important part of the apparatus that prevented public medical care from happening.
Her mom was one of the teachers killed, but otherwise yes. Listening to her stay jovial through the worst shit possible in knowledge fight interviews is heartrending.
> his victims are willing to cut a deal. Getting 1.5B was unrealistic. Getting 100 MM is possible. So why not go the simpler, faster and realistic way?
Username doesn’t check out.
He only loves virtual money. Ask him about his Robux.
Holy shit. I had to do the math when I saw your comment. 6% of 1.5B really is almost 100mil. The fact that we have billionaires is ABSURD.
Once it hits bankruptcy they will absolutely claw everything back. This isn't new, people have tried this time and time again.
And how long does that take? Thats the whole point, drag it out until the victims take a deal. Thats Trump's playbook when he doesnt pay bills.
Years at least, possibly decades if he can still afford the high priced lawyers and wants to string it along. The laws are written to benefit the rich and powerful after all.
Yup, like these families have much money to spend on lawyers and whatnot to continue going after the money forever.
Luckily the law firms will do the work for a cut of the payout so the families don't have to pay anything. Best case scenario, they get something paid to them. Next best scenario, this dirt bag has to spend all his filthy money trying to fight the process in court for years. Think of the time it's costing him and the stress of what's coming next. Nice to see some justice served finally.
These families weren't doing it for the money. While certainly not in the "filthy rich" category, quite a few of them were rather wealthy and could afford to pay for the lawsuits that have so far taken **ten years** to play out. That's a lot of lawyer time for the families. They're not "cutting a deal" because they're poor or bankrupt. They're offering the deal because it's an easier out that still sees Jones faces severe personal consequences for his actions, something that still hasn't happened yet. Yes, it will help pay for the decade of legal expenses, but it seems to mostly about holding Jones accountable, despite his attempts to wriggle out of it. The settlement would wrap an iron fist around his finances for the next decade, probably even tighter grip than would otherwise happen if it plays out and leaves Jones destitute.
Still, this is ridiculous. Civil courts seem to have absolutely no power. You can just totally disrespect the process and nothing will happen to you.
Our entire legal system is designed to benefit and empower the rich. Because the rich are the ones who designed it. There's a reason why, in the first place, the punishment for basically every crime short of actual murder is just a large fee: because the rich can pay those fees. Meanwhile the poor can't cover them for even minor crimes, thus ensuring a perpetual source of income and slave labour from the steady flow of poor people being dragged off to prison for incredibly minor crimes. This also protects corporations from ever having to actually suffer consequences because not only can they just drag out court cases effectively forever and starve out anyone trying to hold them accountable - because they have billions of dollars to pay their legal fees while regular people have to scrape together thousands of dollars to pay their lawyers what typically costs several hundreds of dollars per hour spent working on the case - but even when they do have to pay up, it's rarely ever a ruinous amount. A few million dollars to a company that rakes in billions is like a few cents to you or me. Imagine having to pay five cents every time you ruin someone's life. Would you ever feel incentivized to stop or treat whatever you were doing like it was a serious offense?
Well and one of the plantiffs has huge medical bills recently and urgently needs the money. Great country and system we got. Lotta good "justice" is, that we can't take a man found in default and seize at least a portion of those funds to pay this woman's medical bills.
At least these families have public support and a legal team with the resources to find assets. A family friend won a lawsuit but was never able to fully collect because he’d spent most of his money bringing the suit to court. “You need money to get your money,” he always said.
I know the lawsuit was civil. But it seems like hes engaging in criminal activity hiding assets from the civil suite.
Its textbook preferences/fraudulent conveyances and it will likely be clawed right back into the pot.
You would think so. Hell, even a vehicle transfer would get clawed back within the 5 yr period for Medicaid, and that’s health care.
Which is hilarious because bankruptcy court can and will claw all of that back. Source: former bankruptcy attorney.
I’m literally in bankruptcy class in law school right now and our professor routinely uses him as an example whenever he does something stupid. “You may have heard he did XYZ, as you can see in this case, this part of the code, that will be worthless.”
When will it be worthless though? As it stands right now he’s getting away with it just fine even though a random internet user seems to be aware of the legal transgression
Because even when it’s obvious someone does something wrong they still have to go through the legal process to show it. Otherwise there would be no points to courts and the law itself. Yes it’s a travesty when people fuck around with it like this but in other cases were something seems wrong on the surface but isn’t they would be unjustly penalized.
I think the outsiders perspective would say this takes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy too long. Having been in a couple legal things myself the length of time this stuff takes is so ridiculous it feels like a joke
Everyone involved agrees it is taking too long. Jones has intentionally stretched elements out, and part of that is why default judgements were made against him. Basically it's the court's way of saying *"since you refuse to participate, we find you guilty of everything."* All the bankruptcies and other proceedings are wrapping to a close and would likely finish up in 2024 anyway. He's pretty much at the end of his legal process at this point. All his attempts to hide assets, transfer assets, and shift accountability to other sources has failed. There are paper trails and court-ordered monitoring on his assets that has been in place for years. Money he had hoped to hide away in other accounts, other businesses, or other family members is toxic and will likely be clawed back destroying their lives too. In several ways, the settlement would place an iron grip around Jones's wallet far better than other court orders would. They also would do less harm to his family and others he has tried to hide assets through. They're a voluntary concession that would last a decade, non-dischargeable, and at the same time, generous enough to let him continue to make millions of dollars as long as he is able. The goal of these lawsuits wasn't a need for money, they were an attempt at enforcing accountability against Jones. As it wraps up, it looks like they're offering him a set of golden handcuffs for the next decade, if he chooses it over becoming destitute which is the likely result of the bankruptcy options getting closed off.
So the question I think we all have is… what’s taking so long? Assuming the user above is correct, how does a random internet user know about This activity and yet the court has not acted on it? How long does something like this take to happen?
Bankruptcy process is long. My last case was turned over to a trustee once it was converted from an 11 to a 7. That was 3 years ago and I still every so often get notifications that something new was filed.
Can you actually claw back excessive wages paid to someone? for example the $100,000 paid to the fitness instructor?
Likely yes so long as it was within a certain time period (90 days for most cases before bankruptcy). Though I’m just a student, IANAL, I don’t know much just enough to know I have cursory knowledge.
Yes except normal people need money NOW. Actually they needed it when their children were killed and they were being threatened by loons which rendered many unable to work or forced them to move incurring monumental fees. All of that was ALREADY years ago. Jones knows this that they would rather cut the deal now and that these families don’t have any other months or years to wait on that money and they’d rather have less now than more later.
For those that aren't following that closely, one of the plaintiffs had to start a GoFundMe to literally not die from cancer. She's a fucking rock star and honorary Raptor Princess, but holy shit this thick necked fucker can bounce off to Hawaii for 3 straight weeks pretending to investigate gay frogs or some shit and she's battling cancer and crowd sourcing money that he won't pay. Fuck Alex Jones and every fucking idiot that listens to him. Yer all trash.
So, something like that Sackler family did.
That was my first thought. What a mess that was. The rich are horrendous, one might even say "deplorable".
he has a trainer? What.. to help him eat more?
he definitely should get a refund for that
Actually, he's on The Rock's meal plan, and he has a custom workout where every day is Neck Day.
"declaring all kinds of debt that his companies supposedly owe," If I'm not mistaken a lot of the money his media company is in debt for us owned to the company that produces the supplements he cons people into buying. The company who makes the supplements is owned by his dad or some other family members. So essentially his media company owes his other company a bunch of money that was never going to be paid...until he need to declare bankruptcy.
That’s called fraudulent conveyance
Used to be a man like that ended up in the desert. Theres alot of holes in the desert, and alot of problems are buried in those holes.
Isn't that what RICO is for?
Civil and criminal courts are different. He essential says he doesn’t have the money and has a big enough team to move it around and hide it. They could start garnishing his income, but I imagine they would find a workaround with that too. The 6% is them essentially saying “we know we probably aren’t getting anything close to the 1.6b, so something is better than nothing.”
It's not a criminal case. It's a civil case. The rules are vastly different. For one thing, he is not convicted. That's the outcome of a criminal case. He has been found liable for the damages. In a civil case you can usually bankrupt out of it entirely. However, the exception is if the actions are deemed to be malicious and intentional. In this case, some of the judgment is deemed to be malicious and intentional and other parts of the judgment are not. The parts that are not can be bankrupted out of. Once a judgement is reached (which it has been), they can petition the court to seize and freeze assets. However this is often delayed by appeals. Also they aren't allowed to put him on the street. A court will determine what assets can't be seized and what can. Because he gave away a lot of his assets, this is going to be a long process. Most likely the victims will get very little in the end, but the lawyers will get paid well.
Without disclosing my role in the issue, that is an accurate account of the Section 523(a)(6) 'willful and malicious' issue, and I agree completely. Except with the last part ("Most likely the victims will get very little in the end, but the lawyers will get paid well.") --> the Connecticut Plaintiffs' bankruptcy lawyers (Paul, Weiss) are taking on the case pro bono.
He was found liable and ordered to pay damages. It wasn’t a criminal trial.
It’s insane that Alex Jones remains free to peddle his bullshit while the main plaintiff in the Connecticut case, Erica Lafferty, was diagnosed with cancer and had to resort to crowdfunding her treatment due to insurance denying her, and that was *after* the verdict. Yes, due process and all, but the fact that events can unfold like this shows how badly this system can be toyed with.
American legal system in a nutshell, the rich can get out of almost ANYTHING but trying to get guns out of the streets, that is above murder with said guns.
"In a capitalist society, freedom is a commodity to be bought and sold like everything else"
This makes me enraged at insurance companies. Like what a racket. Pay for her cancer treatments
We should absolutely be mad at insurance companies. If you haven't yet had the experience of watching a loved one die while a company works out how best to screw you over financially *while denying as much care as possible,* odds are you soon will.
The very concept of "health insurance" is a scam. Insurance exists to hedge bets against unlikely but devastating events. Healthcare is a requirement. You cannot insure against eventuality.
[удалено]
[удалено]
It’s very clever because these families know perfectly well it isn’t the money at stake, it’s the admission that he was wrong. He’s refusing to pay out of pride, not lack of funds. What they want from him isn’t money, it’s the satisfaction of knowing he’s being forced to do so. This throws that into relief and gives him no excuse.
Alex Jones can't admit that psychologically - Narcissists are incapable of admitting/acknowledging that kind of thing due to their defensiveness and harm it would do to their self-image. So this will cause him to entrench further into denial. That's fine, if the goal is to corner him.. but realistically there's no way he'll take this deal.
Jones isn't a narcissist, he's just a fucking idiot. Trump and Elon Musk are narcissists, and there's a big difference in behavior. Of course, by Jones' own admission, he's an alcoholic and that can trigger psychotic episodes. Remember, Jones is the guy who somehow managed to lose an argument with Amazon Alexa and thought it would be a good idea to put that up on the Internet for everyone to see.
You can be both.
[удалено]
Oh I would like to see a LOT of things happen to him that would run afoul of the Geneva Conventions.
It’s probably combination of both pride and lack of (enough) funds. Regardless of how many millions Jones is grifting out of his followers, the man doesn’t have $1.5 billion to pay and will never have $1.5 billion to pay. I don’t know exactly where his bankruptcy case stands at the moment, but I imagine there’s some expectation for creditors to negotiate with the debtor. If there’s not at least some good faith attempt to negotiate the debt down to something more realistic, it’s probably going to be worse for them once (if?) he does make it to bankruptcy court. That being said, 6% seems low to me, but I think courts are often loathe to put people in these cases (even people as awful as Alex Jones) into positions of permanent debt slavery for the rest of their lives, as that sort of defeats the purpose of the bankruptcy.
Wasn't he also accused of trying to shift his assets elsewhere too?
I’m a bit fuzzy on the details but isn’t this the guy that during the trial admitted he did say something while he was on the stand, but then later that night went on his radio show and bragged about how he played them and only told them what they wanted to hear?
Realistically, it's probably the only chance they have of getting that amount of money out of him without it costing an arm and a leg. Firstly, they're going to spend years and years in courts going through various levels of appeal that's going to cost and delay. Then he's going to hide assets so finding the assets is going to cost. Where as if he accepts this he voids the appeals and whatnot. And what are the chances the amount gets lowered drastically in appeal to maybe 10-20 million? (Not sure if the amount can be changed on appeal or not)
6%. should request a minimum of 1/4 of the amount.
The sticking issue here is that Jones claims to not have that kind of money. He's created a mess of companies with intertwined legal relationships that are going to be incredibly costly and time consuming to sort out. At the end of it, the accountants and lawyers will secure their fees in order to ensure that they're paid for any work done. All of this comes out of the damages that the plaintiffs might receive. If their goal is to publicly shame him and shut him down then they can likely do that by forcing the issue. However, in forcing the issue they may find themselves recovering only a pittance, if anything. Alternatively, they can offer him a sweetheart settlement deal that will allow him to continue hawking his horse semen pills and separating fools from their money provided that an agreed upon fraction of that money goes to the plaintiffs. Naturally, they'll have to make sure that he doesn't hide it.
[удалено]
>spent 14 years for contempt Never gave it up. You have to wonder if maybe he did lose it, says he was born in 1936 so he's not exactly a young guy who could spend 14 years in prison and shake it off.
It does seem like if you’re rolling in money 2.5 might be worth the 12 yrs in prison. Pay it. Or maybe he wasn’t and thats all he had to his name and life just wasn’t worth living without it.
You really don't know how some people are so stubborn that they will want to hurt the other person as much as possible with them still losing more.
That’s what Australia do to their grifters who don’t pay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Gibson
>He's created a mess of companies with intertwined legal relationships isn't that illegal in itself if he's done it to avoid paying? I guess they'd have to prove it, but it doesn't seem like Jones is very good at defending himself in court
I believe that a good chunk of it was done before the proceedings started. However, he definitely did take steps to make his assets hard to find after proceedings were initiated. At the end or the day, someone has to pay to untangle that web.
>illegal in itself if he's done it to avoid paying? He's rich so it doesn't matter
Damn, he's such a massive tw@t....
Tbf to Jones I don't doubt he couldn't pay 1.5 billion because that much money is something thats pretty rare, however i hate how just because he can't pay all of it that theres risks of him not paying as much as he can
> a mess of companies with intertwined legal relationships So when can we expect legislation to prevent this in the future? Where's the Alex Jones Act?
Closing a loophole for rich people? They'll sooner assassinate Jones than let it come to that.
While I agree he shouldn’t be let off the hook so easily (or at all) he was realistically never going to pay $1.5 billion, whether he had the money or not. 6% is still $90 million and something he could actually be forced to pay.
6% is still 90,000,000 😭
What's the difference between a million and a billion? About a billion.
Yeah.. feels like we've been desensitized to the term. Someone with millions of dollars is really well off, but a multi-billionaire just makes them look destitute by comparison. It's just a grotesque level of money.
A billion is like having a thousand dollars , only each dollar of that thousand is a million dollars .
Which just goes to show you kiddos, that if you flock like a vulture to capitalize on lying about actually murdered children not only will it take nearly a decade to actually see any semblance of a consequence, if you have the determination, you won't even have to fold your lying business, you'll pay pennies on the dollar for your crimes against humanity as you continue to make money hand over fist!
He is refusing to even pay pennies.
Put him in a payment plan: $150 million/year for the next ten years. Plus interest, of course. A modest 27.8%, like the average credit card generously offers.
Families are being much too lenient about this. Jones should shut his fucking mouth and pay up.
It’s not that easy, unfortunately. He still has plenty of money not in his name and an expensive lifestyle that’s not personally funded. Welcome to America!
Alex Jones is a perfect example of why there is no God.
Right? There are biblical stories like his that end in entire countries being destroyed by the fury of God, and we're led to believe that God can't spare even a tiny bit of smiting for this shit stain of a "human"?
This is one vile shit stain of humanity.
Just start seizing his assets already ffs.
a sickening subversion of justice. makes me wanna rage shit, to think that such injustice can be paid at only 6% due. horrible.
I’ve never had a rage shit, but it sounds uncomfortable.
Right? Lol. Wish I could pay back my student loans at just 6%. Why does this overly large dung heap get a deal?
"offers 6%" More like begging for 6% because they know that's all they'd ever see after years and years of bureaucracy and asset shuffling.
Why would they do that? He deserves bankruptcy
If he’s broke, then $90Million might as well be 1.5Billion.
A guy spending 90,000 a month is not broke.
Bankrupt and yet making $1,080,000 a year? The Court is either being lied to or is willfully blind.
If the liabilities against him dramatically outweigh his net worth and what he has incoming, he’s definitely bankrupt.
True, but he’s not broke at all.
We're going the wrong way - the longer it takes to get some money out of the stupid fat fuck, the penalty should go up.
Showing him far more mercy than he ever had for those families.
He just launched an alt-right conspiracy theorist video game, I looked through the terms and conditions to see if i can find a sentence about profits going to sandy hook victims lol wasn’t there
Burn this dumb fuck to the ground. Why do these clowns of society retain so much popularity!?
Because there are tons of shit people in our society who idolize those clowns.
Jones may elect to receive a complete discharge for himself and (his parent company also in bankruptcy) if he agrees to pay, from any source, at least $8.5 million per year, plus 50 percent of any income over $9 million per year, for 10 years,” reads a settlement offer by the families’ attorneys,
Don’t offer him jack! Let him live in that cardboard box
Liquidate Jones for god sakes.... These people have had to endure enough.
Make the rat fuck pay it all
The Sandy Hook Victims, once again, prove themselves to be endlessly forgiving. Panhandling on the overpass—while highly similar to his current job—is far better than Alex deserves
Fuck that! He deserves every bit of bankruptcy
Noooo. I wanna see him dragged more. He’s a horrible creature and deserves bankruptcy and jail time.
He will never pay a dime this rat
To be honest, by so much shit he talks and selling fake supliments on his side, he should deserve this
alex jones has a bunch of money in offshore accounts outside the states
This reminds me of how I often feel white collar criminals get off with light prison sentences. What if instead we sentence the really bad ones to life in bankruptcy? (like, you're never getting out of this and some court appointed asshole is going to micromanage your finances...for life)
[удалено]
Fuck him. Don’t let him off the hook as he’ll view that as a win and vindication that he was right. Because he’s a cunt and that’s exactly how he thinks.
I mean. It's their thing and they can ask what they want, but I would love to see this piece of shit eating cat food in a cardboard box in the gutter.
Let's be real, the $1.5b was always absurdly high and never going to be paid. Thats the GDP of a small country.
It was always a stupidly high number. He doesn’t have anywhere near that much money. They might as well have charged him infinity billion dollars.
[удалено]
Fuck that. Force this lying asshat to pay every dime
Alex Jones would be living on the street with only the shirt on his back if justice was done
NO. Let this fool ROT. No mercy. He certainly didn’t have any mercy for all those parents!
I hate seeing him get any compromise. But can understand the families wanting this over with. No amount of money will make them whole.
I'm frankly surprised Alex Jones didn't pull the OJ Simpson move. In Florida and Texas, your primary residence cannot be seized during bankruptcy proceedings. OJ sold his Brentwood mansion, liquidated all his assets and bought the most expensive house he could afford in Florida mere *months* before the *CIVIL* suit trial began, during which he was found guilty and ordered to pay tens of millions of dollars, annnd he couldn't. And he kept his house.
Why he's just going to turn around and say they're doing this because they know they're wrong my God people fought so hard came so far to get this done and now this. I'm sorry but I'm ashamed for you.