Alex Jones files for bankruptcy after billion-dollar Sandy Hook court ruling

Rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones filed for personal chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas on Friday, according to a court filing, as he faces nearly $1.5bn in court judgments over conspiracy theories he spread about the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre.

Jones was ordered by a Connecticut court last month to pay $473m in punitive damages on top of a nearly $1bn verdict handed down in October for his defamatory lies that the shooting was faked.

In October, a Connecticut jury in a case brought by relatives of more than a dozen Sandy Hook victims ordered Jones and Free Speech Systems to pay nearly $1bn in damages.

In a separate case in Texas, a jury in August decided Jones must pay the parents of a six-year-old boy killed in the Sandy Hook massacre $45.2m in punitive damages, on top of $4.1m in compensatory damages.

An attorney representing Jones in the bankruptcy case did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut case, criticized the bankruptcy filing on Friday.

Erica Lafferty, the daughter of the slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, testified that people mailed rape threats to her house.

The comments contradicted the testimony of a forensic economist at the Texas trial, who said Jones and his company Free Speech Systems have a combined net worth as high as $270m. Free Speech Systems is also seeking bankruptcy protection.