Sandy Hook denier Alex Jones has been handed a lifeline by a judge after he broke down in tears on his conspiracy-laden Infowars show, claiming that federal authorities were trying to shut it down.
On Monday, US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez issued a ruling allowing Jones to keep operations up and running for the next two weeks while the court decides whether his assets should be liquidated.
Jones was previously sued by the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims for pushing a conspiracy theory that the massacre was a hoax. A judge ultimately ordered him to pay $1.5bn in compensation to the families.
The ruling led to Jones and his company Free Speech Systems filing for bankruptcy reorganization and he has so far failed to pay out any of the sum, claiming he was “officially out of money”.
On Sunday, the Sandy Hook families filed an emergency motion to plunge the company into liquidation.
But, the bankruptcy judge in Houston, granted Jones more time, giving him until June 14 to keep his business up and running.
The judge is expected to rule on whether or not to liquidate the company then.
The decision comes after Jones, 50, went on a PR rampage over the weekend, holding what he described as “emergency broadcasts” and openly sobbing on his show.
On the shows, Jones alleged, without any evidence, that the “Deep State” was trying to shut him down after federal agents supposedly received “secret federal files” that alleged he was committing crimes that were handed over to the Justice Department.
He alleged he had to sleep in the show’s Dallas studio the night before to prevent it from being padlocked, hours before the web version of his network, in an article, claimed the same.
“I love this crew,” Jones said about 15 minutes into the final hour of the X broadcast, where he called members of the unspecified federal agencies supposedly stalking him “p**sies” and “a**holes.”
“I’m so pissed off,” he said, starting to sob. “I’m trying to cry as a fake thing, but I am so sick of these people,” he added.
“All we’re trying to do is save America, and they’re f**king us over, over and over again.
“And it’s just so sick – it’s sick, it’s sick. I want to leave – because it’s going to be over, folks.”
He went on to say that he would “come back bigger than ever,” before adding, “But my baby, I’m watching them rape it.”
Infowars continues to be up and running as of Tuesday morning and no reports of federal agents near the studio’s premises have been received.
However, Jones – who is bankrupt due to his lies about Sandy Hook – told Newsweek that he spotted “guards looking at me weird” at the entrance of the Infowars building in Downtown Dallas, and believed his company was going to be shut down.
In a post on X over the weekend, Jones however appeared to admit that he wasn’t sure if the shut down was actually happening.
“There’s a 50 percent chance this is happening right now,” Jones wrote on X.
“They want us shut down because in bankruptcy and what was happening we have a path with the judge to continue on for years, and the judge has signaled that.
“Different groups involved in the bankruptcy that will be exposed soon have literally made a move to shut this place down and end my show.”
Beyond lying about the Sandy Hook massacre, the right-wing extremist has faced criticism in the past for playing an amped-up version of himself not only on the air but in public, with his lawyers previously claiming he is a “performance artist” who is merely “playing a character” on his Infowars show.
“He’s playing a character,” his attorney, Randall Wilhite, said at a pretrial hearing where Jones’s ex-girlfriend Kelly Jones attempted – successfully – to get custody of their three children. “He is a performance artist.”
Kelly obtained custody of the kids after citing her husband’s “unstable” character and possibly illegal remarks.
