US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones files for personal bankruptcy after Sandy Hook verdict

Alex Jones has filed for personal bankruptcy after he was ordered to pay $1.5 billion (£1.2 billion) to families who sued him over his conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre.

The court documents - filed in Houston, Texas on Friday - say the Infowars host has between $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities and $1 million to $10 million in assets.

Jones acknowledged the filing on his Infowars broadcast, saying the case will prove that he’s out of money, as he asked viewers to shop on his website to help keep the show on the air.

“I’m officially out of money, personally,” the 48-year-old said. “It’s all going to be filed. It’s all going to be public. And you will see that Alex Jones has almost no cash.”

He falsely claimed for years the 2012 killing of 20 students and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was staged with actors who were part of a government-led plot to take Americans' guns away.

A Connecticut jury in October awarded victims’ families $965 million in compensatory damages, and a judge later tacked on another $473 million in punitive damages.

Earlier in the year, a Texas jury awarded the parents of a child killed in the shooting $49 million in damages.

The bankruptcy filing temporarily halted all proceedings in the Connecticut case. It could further delay payments as the case plays out in bankruptcy courts.

A judge was forced to cancel a hearing scheduled for Friday on the Sandy Hook families’ request to secure the assets of Jones and his company to help pay the nearly $1.4 billion in damages awarded there.

On Thursday, Jones made headlines after he was joined by Kanye West for an interview in which the rapper, legally known as Ye, praised Hitler.

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