From Bankruptcy In Texas To Sanctions In Connecticut, Alex Jones's Legal Problems Are Just Beginning

And his lawyers are in the shit with him.

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(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

It’s been a bad week for Alex Jones, and an even worse one for his lawyers.

On Friday, US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez convened an emergency hearing regarding Free Speech Systems (FSS), the parent company of Infowars, where Jones spews his bile for millions every day. This is the second bankruptcy in the past five months for a Jones-related entity, after the shitposter placed three worthless shell companies in bankruptcy in a failed effort to halt the defamation suits brought by families of Sandy Hook victims. Since then, he “remembered” that FSS owed upwards of $60 million to a Nevada LLC called PQPR Holdings Limited LLC for supplements already supplied, forcing FSS to declare bankruptcy. And hey wouldn’t ya know, turns out PQPR is wholly owned by Alex Jones and his parents David and Carol.

What are the odds!

Jones cried poor for years after being deplatformed from mainstream social media sites, even testifying on the stand during the first Sandy Hook suit that any jury award above $2 million would ruin him financially. Turns out, not so much. In fact, FSS requested the emergency hearing on Friday because, after the trial, sales rocketed past the projected $600,000/week to somewhere between $800,000 and $900,000. Infowars’s loyal customers have been hoovering up those iodine pills like candy after seeing Alex Jones get martyred for free speech, so now FSS needs more cash from the estate to pay its vendors — or, uh, “vendors” as the case may be.

The Sandy Hook plaintiffs object to the increased draw on the theory that the vendors are related entities to Jones, and thus the court is being asked to put even more cash directly into Jones’s pocket. Aside from the obvious issues with PQPR, which has suddenly realized it needs to get paid upfront, the creditors take issue with Jones’s decision to outsource fulfillment of FSS’s swag sales to a logistics company formed by his personal trainer approximately ten minutes before the bankruptcy filing.

And no, that’s not a joke. Patrick Reiley, owner of the newly formed logistics company Blue Ascension, testified that Jones hired him in 2016 “to help him and his father maintain good health and be a beacon of wellness.” Reiley’s responsibilities progressed to include “handling problems as they came up” and acting as a go-between for people who wanted to get in touch with Jones.

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When shit was about to hit the fan with the tort suits, Jones came to Reiley with a business opportunity. How would Reiley like to hire Jones’s shipping employees to do exactly the same job but for an outside entity? What if Jones threw in the warehouse space and equipment rent-free?

“Sweeeeeeet, dude,” we imagine he replied, while making the hang ten sign. And that’s how FSS came to get its shipping responsibilities off the books. Also, Jones threw in a $400,000 personal check on the day before Reiley testified. LOL!

In the event, Judge Lopez granted the requested relief for a couple of weeks, but promised more oversight and a potential clawback.

Then on Monday, Jones got bad news from US Bankruptcy Judge Julie Manning in Connecticut, who remanded the Connecticut plaintiffs’ Sandy Hook defamation suit to state court. That means the big trial with upwards of a dozen plaintiffs can go forward as scheduled next month against Jones alone.

“On multiple occasions, the Plaintiffs have had to pursue their claims in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, and this Court. During jury selection and just weeks before trial is scheduled to begin in the Connecticut Superior Court, the Plaintiffs were involuntarily removed to this Court,” the court wrote, noting the years of dilatory filings by Jones and his companies. “The Plaintiffs’ claims are ready to be tried in the Connecticut Superior Court. If remand does not occur, the prejudice to the Plaintiffs is much greater than any possible prejudice to FSS.”

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This was bad news for Jones’s longtime attorney Norm Pattis, who sought to block Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis from sanctioning him on the theory that she no longer had jurisdiction over the case. The court is investigating allegations that Pattis improperly transmitted the Connecticut plaintiffs’ confidential medical records to Alex Jones.

In the Texas trial, plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Bankston dramatically confronted Jones on the witness stand saying, “Did you know that your lawyers messed up and sent me your entire cell phone texting history 12 days ago?”

In fact, Jones’s Texas lawyer Andino Reynal appears to have shared the entire contents of Jones’s phone with opposing counsel, which is how Bankston and everyone else involved found out that medical and psychiatric records for the Connecticut plaintiffs were being passed around willy nilly.

Judge Barbara Bellis promptly summoned Pattis and Reynal to her courtroom to explain themselves. In a brief virtual hearing this morning, she gave Reynal the business, noting that this is the fourth time in this case in which the court has convened to consider sanctions on counsel. The parties were instructed to schedule evidentiary hearings before the trial commences in September.

Pattis’s portion was held in-person, but Connecticut Public Radio reporter Frankie Graziano reports that Pattis’s first character witness was the state’s former top prosecutor, who was forced out three months ago in a hiring scandal. Which is pretty much what you’d expect from a lawyer who drops his pants and shouts racial epithets for “comedy” or laughing while his client calls opposing counsel “a little, white Jewboy jerkoff son of a bitch” on air.

The proceedings will be joined with Reynal’s hearing and continued on August 25, since the evidence and the underlying act overlap.

Auspicious omens all ’round!

Free Speech Systems LLC Bankruptcy [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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