A bank recently shut down the accounts of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ media company, citing unauthorized transactions — a move that caused panic at the business when its balances suddenly dropped from more than $2 million to zero, according to a lawyer for the company.

The action last week by Axos Bank also exposed worry and doubt at the company, Free Speech Systems, about being able to find another bank to handle its money.

Jones, a conservative provocateur whose Infowars program promotes fake theories about global conspiracies, UFOs and mind control, is seeking bankruptcy protection as he and his company owe $1.5 billion to relatives of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.

  • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This fucker should have zero dollars he owes a billion dollars to the Sandy Hook victims. He should be settling in jail fucking scumbag.

    • Jessvj93@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They haven’t even seen a dime yet and this motherfucker has been spending it. 2 million for them finally, what a joke that it took this.

      • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        He the one that used his platform telling his followers that the Sandy Hook elementary Massacre was a deep state hoax and that the kids and parents were and are actors.

        He literally as spent years building up this conspiracy to the point that the parents of those poor dead children have been harassed for over a decade by crazys. I believe I heard that even one of the parents killed themselves over it.

        He also guy said government was making the frogs gay. Anyway he was sued and they got a billion dollar settlement against him.

      • TheOneCurly@lemmy.theonecurly.page
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        1 year ago

        He spent years spreading lies on his show that the victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting weren’t real and were part of some sort of conspiracy. He lost a civil case brought by the families of the murdered kids who suffered a ton of harassment by his fans. They were awarded a lot of money that he has so far weasled out of paying.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          The extra bits here are that they had data proving engagement went way, way up when they claimed it was a deep state conspiracy, so they leaned into it hard. This was done cynically, on purpose. They tortured these child murder victim familes for decades, for money.

          The other part is that he lost by default, as he refused to turn over any legally required documents when sued. The only time you would ever opt to do that at trial is if the documents were far more damning than out and out losing. Judges dont like this, and neither do juries.

          The third fun part? One of his lawyers legal aides accidentally sent a full capture of alex jones cellphone, with about 2 yrs of data on it, to the opposing council. Instead of making a legally binding request for opposing council to get rid of this accidental disclosure, he just asked him casually to discard it. Opposing council didn’t reply back, but did wait the legally required time in Texas before it became “fair game,” since alex jones lawyer didnt do his due diligence. A bit of dirty pool from the sandy hook laywer, but a monsterous fuck you to Alex jones that he deserved. His phone was turned over to both the feds for Jan 6th reasons and his ex wife.

  • fiat_lux@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    This is the underlying problem with how we use money as a proxy for power. As soon as someone signs something into their family’s name it becomes nearly inaccessible to the justice system, because of due process and corporate personhood. Bank transfers are pretty instantaneous nowadays, the justice systems are very much not. Which leaves these families on years-long time-consuming expensive missions to force any blood from that stone.

    I have a zany idea for partially remedying this. Send the person to actual prison when it becomes clear that the companies they have a financial interest in have not shown progress on divesting their assets and removing the person from the business, let’s say after 1 month - just enough to appoint an independent auditor. No professional communication with the person except via their lawyers and auditor. Economic sanctions for all companies dealing with that person until all appeals are exhausted, except their lawyers. No merchandise deals, movies, supplements contracts, guest hosting on Steven Crowder’s podcast, none of that.

    If businesses have legal personhood, it’s time to start applying personal consequences for the key decision-makers of those companies when they commit crimes or facilitate the people avoiding consequences.

  • vrek@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    Yes he is an asshole. Yes he deserves to lose all his money. Yes he should/has to pay the victims of sand hook.

    My question is what happens to the money in the account? Can the bank just say we are not willing to do business with you anymore and keep it?

    If this was me or you, can a bank just deny you access to the money in your account?

    I would think… And I am no expert… They could say “we don’t want your business anymore, take the money out of your accounts within 30 days or it’s forfiet” or something. But to think the bank can just close the account and keep the money seems really bad in my eyes.

    • static@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      They’re not keeping the money:
      “He said the bank informed Jones’ company that it would be sending a cashier’s check for the total balance.”

    • evatronic@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      In this case, the bank is just saying, “You’re no longer our customer,” and sending him a cashier’s check for the balance / value of his accounts.

      In other cases, where the authorities have seized the accounts, the assets are frozen. The bank will turn it over to the authorities (federal, state, whatever) where the monies will generally be kept in an interest-bearing account that keeps track with inflation or similar but otherwise remain inaccessible to the original owner until the legal matters are resolved.

      The only time, setting aside simple banking errors, the Bank would keep it is if the Bank is owed money anyway. LIke say, Jones had a huge set of outstanding loans he’d refused to pay. The Bank would simply take funds from the deposit acocunts and use them to pay down the loan(s).

    • Sacreblew@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      As long as the money isn’t part of an investigation, the company will be able to access it within the month.

  • aidan@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Still insane that one of the largest civil suits in history is over Alex Jones, and not the many times people have died because of gross negligence, or many other terrible things. Alex Jones is not a good guy, but, 1.5 billion???

    • Not A Bird@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      He has paid 0 cents. He spent 93000$ in July for Personal expenses. His net worth is over 14M.

      The Billions is just for show. This guy has faced 0 consequences.

      • aidan@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah I’m not surprised, my point is just that is a ridiculous amount to be awarded.

  • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The fact he hasn’t paid out a dime or seen a single millisecond of jail time should show you whose side the legal system is really on.