Sandy Hook families sued Alex Jones. Then he started moving money around.

Alex Jones was in a courtroom.

He and his media company were sued by the parents of children who were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. The fans of the host harassed grieving families. The lawsuits were not going his way by the summer of 2020.

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According to a Washington Post review of financial statements, depositions and other court records, Jones moved millions of dollars out of his company and into companies controlled by friends or relatives. The funds could not be reached by the Sandy Hook victims.

According to financial records filed in court by Jones's attorneys, Free Speech Systems signed promissory notes for $55 million between August 2020 and November 2021. According to the records, Jones's father bought tens of millions of dollars in supplements for his son and then sold them on his show. The lawyer for Free Speech Systems said in court that the debt was not noticed because of sloppy bookkeeping.

Jones paid his personal trainer $100,000 a week to help ship supplements and other merchandise, according to an attorney. The company managed by Jones's sister was paid $240,000.

The Sandy Hook families have been awarded over a billion dollars in damages against Jones, including over a billion dollars in Texas and over a billion dollars in Connecticut. The judge in the Connecticut case ordered Jones to pay an additional $473 million in damages. On his show, Jones stated that he would appeal.

According to Jones's court filing, the recent transactions helped tip Free Speech Systems into Chapter 11. At the end of May, Free Speech Systems had $79 million in debts and only 14 million in assets, according to court records. The Sandy Hook families could be competing with companies tied to Jones to collect their money.

The bankruptcy court will decide how much to pay. The promissory notes are being examined to see if they are legit. The Sandy Hook victims are included in a category that the attorneys for the company argue should be paid before other people's money.

In April, attorneys for the Sandy Hook families filed a lawsuit in Texas state court that claimed Jones had engaged in fraudulent transfers to shield his wealth. Jones moved money out of Free Speech Systems after he faced legal setbacks in the defamation cases, according to court documents.

In the middle of the lawsuit, they began documenting debts that had no evidence of existing before.

The Justice Department Trustee who is in charge of ensuring the integrity of the process has criticized the agreement to pay PQ PR. According to a transcript, the U.S. Trustee has concerns with the underlying transaction. A spokeswoman for the agency wouldn't say anything.

Alex Jones did not respond to requests for comment or to detailed lists of questions from The Post. David Jones, Alex Jones's father, and an attorney representing him didn't respond to questions.

According to court proceedings, Jones and his father created the company in order to protect themselves from liability when Jones started working in the supplement business. Jones's main company shared responsibility for setting up supply chains, obtaining required governmental certifications, negotiating with vendors, procuring and paying for product, and overhead with theTrademarkiaTrademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia.Trademarkia

As the Infowars brand ballooned and millions of dollars poured in, the family-run business never adopted appropriate management and accounting controls, according to a lawyer for Free Speech Systems.

"This is similar to the garage band that became the boy band overnight, and had his girlfriend running the books, and the head roadie being the business manager," Battaglia said.

The corporate structures were not uncommon. Small-business owners protect their wealth by creating separate entities. The fact that the entities do not have any employees, offices or owners other than Jones and his parents doesn't mean they are not legitimate businesses according to experts.

The issue is whether the transfers of wealth were done in the normal course of business. The question is whether the payments are valid.

The Post looked at financial records, depositions and other documents from the court cases to find out who owned the other companies. According to sealed court records from the divorce case obtained by The Post, the transfers mirrored financial moves Jones made a decade earlier.

Jones has become a wealthy man due to the Sandy Hook litigation. An expert was hired by the Sandy Hook families to estimate Jones's net worth. Jones doesn't agree with the estimates of his wealth.

He doesn't have all the money they've made up.

According to financial records Jones submitted in his Chapter 11 case, the supplement business is the engine of Jones's fortune. Survival Shield X-2 spray, DNA Force Plus capsule and Super Male Vitality supplement are available.

According to the records, the majority of the $65 million in income was from supplement sales.

If Jones ended his broadcasting career, Berkowitz said his clients would be willing to pay less for him.

We'll be willing to listen if he wants to agree to some sort of terms that will hold him accountable. The Sandy Hook families will not stop until Jones is held accountable.

Jones will fight no matter what.

He said during a show last month that they wanted us off the air. You have my commitment," he said. I am not giving up.

It's - - -

Jones was born in Dallas and then in Austin. When he was a high school student, he read a book by a member of the John Birch Society that made him think. When federal agents raided the Branch Davidians' compound in 1993, Jones was 19 years old. He told the Austin American Statesman that he left Austin Community College because he was bored.

He told the newspaper that he was angry with the government because of the problems his father and grandfather had with the IRS. He said that the venom came from him.

In the early 1990s, Jones hosted a public access TV show. A local radio station gave him a show after his father agreed to sponsor it.

Dozens of stations carried his show in the late 90s.

Jones called the Branch Davidians victims a "government coverup of its violation of the First Amendment" and asked for donations to help build a new church. He wore a pin that said "You burn it, we build it" at the 1999 ground breaking. He was a young man.

The media and the government were called out by Jones. Major world events were staged to serve as pretexts to accomplish the goals of a secret group of globalists and multinational corporations according to him.

The site infowars.com was registered in 1999. He began selling videos, books and T-shirts after launching a subscription-only streaming video service. After meeting his wife at the public access station, he incorporated Free Speech Systems and created a series of other companies that held intellectual property and film rights.

In 2009, Free Speech Systems took in $6.2 million in revenue, which included $2.6 million in merchandise sales, $1.6 million in advertising and $1.2 million from his streaming video site, according to records obtained by The Post.

Jones's business boomed but his marriage was failing.

Two months before Kelly filed for divorce, Jones and his father created a series of companies to protect Jones from legal liability as he continued to grow his business. A representative of Free Speech Systems said in a deposition that two other companies were owned by Jones or his parents.

The accountant Jones hired in the divorce case said that the company was worth $4.4 million. It was worth as much as $6.2 million, according to accountants.

During a deposition in one of the defamation cases, Alex Jones said that they created the companies after speaking with attorneys from the FDA. He said that it was good to have a separate company that did all of the compliance for liability protection issues.

In the divorce case, Jones's father said that Jones recruited him to leave dentistry in order to protect the company from liability. He wanted to make sure that the entities that had been created were up and running properly, that they were legally constituted, and that they were doing business as they were supposed to.

According to Jones's ex- wife, he created the companies to protect his money as the couple was about to divorce. At that time, our marriage was not good. She told The Post that they were in talks to break up. He hid his assets when we split up.

There are no records left from the case. The documents obtained by The Post didn't indicate if the court ever looked at that allegation.

According to records from the divorce case, Kelly held stakes ranging from 49.5 percent to 51 percent in the main Infowars company. She no longer has an interest in what were the newly created companies. Her name doesn't show up on their documents.

Jones's biggest revenue source is the supplements that he promotes as a way for viewers to improve their health and keep his show going. His business was boosted by the supplement sales.

According to the filings, the profit margin on supplements is between three and five times their cost. Free Speech Systems took in more than $500 million in revenue from 2012 to 2022.

Josh Owens worked as a video editor at Infowars and helped Jones with his first advertisement. He said everything changed after that. After that, it snowballed. It created new products and sold them.

It's - - -

Sandy Hook families filed a number of lawsuits against Jones after his divorce was finalized. He claimed that the parents were crisis actors and that the event was staged to further gun control efforts.

Jones wanted to throw out the cases. On the day before the appeals court denied his motion to have one of the cases dismissed, Jones signed a promissory note for $28.6 million. Jones and his father signed a contract that said he would give all of his company's assets and revenue as security for the debt.

Jones was found to have violated the rules of the discovery process when he failed to turn over records. Jones signed an agreement to pay the debt in four days. On Nov. 10, Jones signed a secondary promissory note saying that he had discovered another debt of over 25 million dollars.

Records show that Jones was taking money out of the company for himself. He withdrew $61.9 million by the end of the year. Attorneys for Jones have said in court that half of the money was used to pay taxes. Sandy Hook families may not have been able to access the money because of the withdrawals.

In February of this year, Jones transferred ownership of his Austin home to his wife.

Blue Asension Logistics was created in March by Patrick Riley, his personal trainer. According to Riley's testimony in the case, the company hired almost all of its employees from Infowars and used the same warehouse to fulfill orders. Jones agreed to pay him $400,000 upfront and $105,000 a week.

Riley didn't reply to the calls for comment. He said that he is the company's sole shareholder.

The attorney for the Sandy Hook families said during the hearing that this is not an arms-length transaction. It's not even close.

Battaglia argued that Riley's business was not dependent on Jones. Is Mr. Riley and Mr. Jones friends? It's absolutely true. Is he an inside person? Battaglia denied in the hearing.

Free Speech Systems made six payments to a company managed by Jones's sister in May and June of this year. Who owns the company is not specified in the records.

Marleigh Jones Rivera didn't reply to questions.

Jones' access to the company's money was temporarily blocked by a Connecticut judge because he needed more money.

Christopher M. Lopez is the bankruptcy judge in Texas. Adam J. Levitin, an expert in corporate bankruptcies, said that if the court finds that he did, the money that has been paid out or committed as debt could be divided among his clients.

The most likely scenario is that Free Speech Systems liquidates, which would mean that Jones would have to give up all of his intellectual property. He said there was no other way for him to avoid liability.

In one of the defamation courts, Jones apologized to the Sandy Hook families and now believes the killings did happen. He is defiantly on his show.

He said at a news conference in Connecticut that he didn't lose sleep over giving them a billion dollars. I have a lot of money. It's not a good thing.

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