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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Alex Jones’ Punitive Damages

Alex Jones’ Punitive Damages

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Some people on the Twitter were upset yesterday that the jury in the Alex Jones case in Texas decided on $4.1 million as the amount of compensatory damages. Well, today is a new day, and it’s punitive damages time. Some other Twitterians were saying that Texas caps the damages at somewhere near $8.75 million. I just watched the plaintiffs’ lead attorney’s closing argument, and he asked for $145.9 million in punitive damages. There is, apparently, no cap (or the cap is $150 million). Anyway, the jury can take a big bite out of Jones if they’re so inclined.

I’m not a lawyer, but I do have two eyes and two ears, and god damn is Jones’ representation team, led by F. Andino Reynal, incompetent. And, boy howdy is the Judge, Maya Guerra Gamble, sick of his shit. He interrupted her reading of the previously agreed-upon jury instructions this morning, and the look she gave him was absolutely withering. She had zero sympathy or interest in stopping the release of the contents of Jones’ phone, which Reynal’s team accidentally sent to the plaintiff’s attorneys. Another Twitterino is saying that what was sent was the entire image of the hard drive of one of the attorneys representing Jones in Connecticut. What a colossal fuckup.

Anyway, I’m hoping for big bucks from this Texas jury, but if not, there are many more lawsuits to come. And, after the big verdicts, there will be more time spent chasing Jones’ assets, because Jebus knows he won’t pay easily. But, in the end, here’s hoping that this fucker feels a little of the pain he inflicted on those families.

Reader Interactions

216Comments

  1. 1.

    zhena gogolia

    OT but good news (WaPo):

    Economy
    Employers added 528,000 jobs in July, shattering expectations

  4. 4.

    Laertes

    Are we sure there’s no cap? Some of the big-brain lawyers on twitter were saying that the TX caps on punitive are real small.

    As far as I can tell, there’s no limit to what the plaintiffs can ask for, and no limit to what the jury can try to award them, and the statutory cap will be applied afterwards by the judge.

    The fact that plaintiff’s counsel is asking for vastly more than TX law allows may simply be good strategy. If he asks for the cap, then that becomes the starting point in the jury room from which the compromises with redpilled jurors begins.

  7. 7.

    Suzanne

    Maybe the lawyers can weigh in here, but how does the court actually collect? Can they seize his bank accounts? Assets? How does this work?

  8. 8.

    oldster

    I hope that they bankrupt him.

    He should remember that law courts were instituted so that families would not take justice into their own hands. The fact that he has not been physically assaulted by some of the families he abused — and made millions from — just shows that they still believe they may get satisfaction from the courts. He should hope they don’t come to lose that belief.

  9. 9.

    Roger Moore

    I am curious if the plaintiffs’ attorneys in this case can share their information with the plaintiffs in other cases against Jones. If they can, it’s a big benefit for those other cases, since they’ll be able to use the information from the beginning.

  12. 12.

    Scout211

    Business Insider is reporting that plaintiffs’ attorney said that Alex Jones’ phone contains “intimate messages with Roger Stone.” Hmmmmm

    “Things like Mr. Jones and his intimate messages to Roger Stone are not confidential. They are not trade secrets, none of them,” Bankston told a Texas judge after Jones’ defense lawyer called for a mistrial in Jones’ defamation-damages trial.

     

    “I am under request from various federal agencies and law enforcement to provide that phone. Absent a ruling from you saying, ‘You cannot do that Mr. Bankston,’ I intend to do so,” Bankston told Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    Yes, the plaintiffs will ask a court to seize his property.  They may have to go to different courts depending on where the property is located.  That said, I expect a bankruptcy filing soon, so that will concentrate the litigation in the bankruptcy court.

  14. 14.

    Roger Moore

    @oldster: ​
     

    I hope that they bankrupt him.

    Technically speaking, they already have. He preemptively declared bankruptcy to protect his assets from expected judgments against him. Those bankruptcy proceedings are going to be slow and painful, because there’s already plenty of evidence he tried every trick to take his assets off the books first. The forensic accountants are going to earn their fees on this one.

  15. 15.

    Tony G

    @Roger Moore: I “worked” in IT for forty years, and I cannot understand how this massive amount of data could have been “accidentally” sent to the plaintiffs — although, of course, I’m glad that there was this massive leak of incriminating data.  There’s something else going on here that we might never find out about.  Also — I hope that this pile of garbage is charged and convicted of perjury, in addition to being reduced to poverty.

  18. 18.

    kalakal

    I’d love to see him taken for every penny he’s got, and then have a public toilet named after him

  19. 19.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Tony G:

    I cannot understand how this massive amount of data could have been “accidentally” sent to the plaintiffs

    His lawyers are staggeringly incompetent.  They are themselves in big trouble for how they have conducted this case.

    EDIT – For slightly more information, there is a shared hard drive for files the lawyers are supposed to give each other. Jones’ lawyers copied their entire drive onto it, then didn’t read the official warnings from the plaintiff’s lawyers to remove it before it became legally free game.

  20. 20.

    Tom Levenson

    Am I a bad person for wishing Bankston would just put the whole thing up on an open website and let a gobsmacked world troll through it all?

    I know that there is likely some stuff that really should stay under wraps (plaintiffs’ medical records, e.g.) so I’m not actually advocating a complete dump. But still, the idea of the entire internet picking through Jones’ and all his correspondents idiocy/criming is a diverting thought.

  24. 24.

    kalakal

    @Tony G: I’ve worked in IT on and off for 40 years ( eek! ), I can’t see how this could happen accidentally unless they’re total amateurs who are literally doing all they’re all the IT themselves, just a collection of laptops with files being swapped by dropbox, usb sticks or whatever. No actual system at all

  29. 29.

    Laertes

    @kalakal: That’s exactly what it sounds like to me. (long-time developer, but not an IT specialist.) Every indication is that they had some ad-hoc workflow and someone just dragged the wrong thing into the wrong window, or misconfigured a sharing filter.

    It’s the kind of mistake that’s quite likely with a bunch of amateurs just using dropbox or google drive.

    I’d expect a big law firm to have real IT, with proper guardrails and all. A scrappy little operator, though, might be doing their IT on the cheap. You could get passably good results with a low-wage clerk using dropbox, and the dangers of doing it that way wouldn’t become apparent until you hit your first catastrophe.

  30. 30.

    Scout211

    @Roger Moore:

    He in reality bankrupted himself withdrawing so much money from his companies to pay a “debt.”

    April 8, 2022   InfoWars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones talks a lot about preparing for the apocalypse, selling his fans all manner of ways to stock their bunkers ahead of the end of the world. But now plaintiffs for Sandy Hook families suing Jones allege that he’s “doomsday prepped” his own business ahead of hefty legal judgments, illicitly moving money out of InfoWars into shell companies to avoid paying his victims. 

    In a court motion filed Wednesday in Texas, the families claim that he has concealed InfoWars’ assets to make the company appear to be nearly bankrupt. The families were joined in the motion by another man suing Jones for falsely accusing him of carrying out the 2018 Parkland shooting. The filing was first posted online by Courthouse News  InfoWars didn’t respond to a request for comment.

    On paper, InfoWars parent company Free Speech Systems seems to lose money every year. Yet Jones has allegedly transferred significant amounts out of the company—financial transactions that often coincide with legal setbacks Jones has faced in the Sandy Hook cases. After the families sued him in 2018, for example, Jones allegedly started personally withdrawing a total of $18 million from the Free Speech Systems bank account over three years, along with drawing an annual $600,000 salary.

    Many of the suspicious transfers center on a mysterious company called PQPR, which the plaintiffs claim is controlled by Jones and his family members. Shortly after Jones lost his last appeal to block the defamation cases in Texas, PQPR claimed that Free Speech Systems owed it $54 million—almost all of InfoWars’ assets.

    Free Speech Systems began transferring its money to PQPR, then onto a series of shell corporations controlled by other Jones family members, according to the motion. While the payments were ostensibly made to pay off the hefty $54 million in arrears—a debt PQPR hadn’t bothered to enforce in the seven years during which InfoWars racked up the tens of millions in supposed debt—the plaintiffs say this was just a scheme to shelter InfoWars assets in an “alphabet soup of shell entities.”

    “They’re transfers designed to siphon off [Jones’] assets to make them judgment-proof,” the lawyers allege.

  31. 31.

    MrKite

    Can the court give control of Infowars parent and shell companies to the plaintiffs? As I recall,  a similar approach was used to shut down a KKK group and a compound of Idaho Nazis.

  32. 32.

    Shalimar

    @Frankensteinbeck: There was child pornography in the discovery info turned over to plaintiffs in one of the cases 3 years ago.  Jones’s attorneys claimed they turned over the full contents of his work email account and the child pornography was in unsolicited emails from his fans, not collected by Jones or his employees.  That excuse sounds far-fetched, but the info was turned over to the FBI and there have been no further updates so maybe it is true.

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    @Tony G:

    My understanding is that the lawyers had a Dropbox account they used to share data between the two sides, and the whole backup of the device was accidentally placed there.  I can imagine the lawyers having a copy of Jones’s backup, and if they have multiple Dropbox accounts, I can imagine them accidentally putting it in the wrong one.  It’s still a hell of a screw up, but it’s easily within the range of stuff someone might do.  Less explicable, but still within the realm of the possible, is that Jones’s lawyers didn’t respond within 10 days saying the material had been shared accidentally and should be treated as privileged.  I won’t discount the possibility the lawyers were deliberately screwing him over, but an honest error is still my leading hypothesis.

  34. 34.

    Fair Economist

    I cannot find anybody posting on the absolutely mindblowing, jawdropping jobs report:
    528,000 jobs added, more than TWICE expectations – to the highest employment ever!
    Unemployment down to 3.5%, lowest number in well over 50 years (since 1968)
    Average hourly earnings up at a 6% rate, even though earnings tend to fall some with hiring, since new workers come in at entry level wages.

    Oh, and June’s already excellent numbers were revised up by 20,000, so the total jobs gained is almost 550,000. Dang.

    These are just insanely good numbers. Lots of Dark Brandon memes on Twitter today.

  36. 36.

    oatler

    They’re going for a mistrial, and may those worthy barristers find future profitable employment!

  37. 37.

    Tom Levenson

    @Roger Moore: Lawyer jackals: are such moves with the intent of concealing assets from creditors (including those with legal judgments to enforce) themselves crimes? I hope so.

  38. 38.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    If he has a steady source of income, they can attach.  Like wage garnishment.  Otherwise, they can’t do much about future income until it’s in his hands.

  39. 39.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Scout211:

    Fun fact – at least in Kentucky, a fraudulent conveyance in an attempt to defeat a judgment creditor can create a punitive damage all on its own.

  40. 40.

    C Stars

    My most vivid impression of this trial, based on the clips I’ve seen shared on the news/social media, and aside from the obvious truth that Jones is unthinkably vile and a moral deviant, is that he must smell. The sweat on that man, and the nauseated look on the judge’s face the whole time…

  43. 43.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Roger Moore:

    Less explicable, but still within the realm of the possible, is that Jones’s lawyers didn’t respond within 10 days saying the material had been shared accidentally and should be treated as privileged.

    The only way I can figure it requires a legal team that is wildly stupid and dedicated to nonresponse as their strategy regarding discovery (both true here) not bothering to actually read the emails sent to them by the plaintiff’s lawyers.

    From the lawyers I have read online, no matter the cause, this will go down in legal legend.

  44. 44.

    James E Powell

    My five minutes of half-assed internet research discloses that Texas had limits on punitive damages – aka exemplary damages – but I can’t speak to the specifics of this case because I do not know them. What was the plaintiff’s cause of action? Intentional infliction of emotional distress?

    Also too, the US Supreme Court has ruled that excessive punitive damages awards violate the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. BMW v Gore, State Farm v Campbell, but if you google those cases you will see that I have not looked at this in many years.

  47. 47.

    Laertes

    @Roger Moore:”Less explicable, but still within the realm of the possible, is that Jones’s lawyers didn’t respond within 10 days saying the material had been shared accidentally and should be treated as privileged.”

    There was a lot of detail about this at a hearing yesterday. It turns out that the defense counsel DID respond promptly, but failed to use the magic words that laid a legal duty to comply upon PC, who then just sat and waited out the ten days.

    DC said something like “plz disregard lol” when what they actually needed to do was name the particular items they’d mistakenly produced, and describe the privilege that applied to each. Or something. NAL.

  49. 49.

    James E Powell

    @Tom Levenson:

    Am I a bad person for wishing Bankston would just put the whole thing up on an open website and let a gobsmacked world troll through it all?

    I don’t think you’re bad at all, but even if you are, you are not alone. More seriously, there are probably privacy issues here – not just Jones’s – and although he is truly evil, I’m always wary of going all pitchforks and torches.

  50. 50.

    Gremcat

    Emptywheel is saying that there may not be any punitive damages because the judgement for punitive damages need to be unanimous and she thinks there are 2 jurors that are Infowar fans.  Yesterday’s judgement only required 10 of the jurors to agree. It might explain why the asshole is so confident on his podcast.

  53. 53.

    Josie

    An interesting sideline to all this is that Gov. Abbott received a hefty award when he was paralyzed by a falling tree in his 20’s. When he gained a position of power, he successfully pushed for limiting damage awards, which is why there are caps in the state of Texas. “Plenty of money for me, but not for thee.”

  54. 54.

    VOR

    @Roger Moore: IANAL. Yes, the plaintiff’s attorney immediately notified the defense attorney about the phone backup. The defense attorney said “please disregard”, not “that is protected material”. Plaintiff’s attorney told the judge “please disregard” does not meet the legal standard so after a period of time (10 days?) it became fair game.

    Supposedly J6 Committee wants to see it because Jones was present and speaking on J6. And DOJ wants it because they have actions going w/ some of Jones people. And his ex-wife says she wants to see it because of a contentious divorce settlement.

  55. 55.

    randy khan

    @Baud:

    I am not making any predictions, but there have been cases where the punitive damages award far exceeded the regular damages, which basically is the jury saying “We know the specific injury was not that big, but what the defendant did was really, really awful and this kind of behavior needs to be discouraged.”

    On a different topic, this is not what I do for a living, but it seems like the judge would stop a plaintiff from asking for more damages than whatever the law says they can be.

  56. 56.

    Subsole

    @Tom Levenson:

    The issue I see there is it makes it harder to prosecute them b/c they can (rightly) claim it makes finding an unbiased jury harder.

    Emotionally satisfying; but probably not a very good strategy.

  58. 58.

    Kenneth Fair

    @Laertes:

    Bankston (the plaintiffs’ lawyer) can ask for anything he wants and the jury can award anything it wants to award in its verdict. But then the judge applies the law to the verdict to come up with the judgment. Under Texas law, a judgment cannot award punitive damages above the capped amount (with exceptions not applicable here). In this case, because the compensatory damages are all noneconomic damages (pain, suffering, mental anguish), the punitive damages are capped at $750,000 per defendant. There are two defendants (Jones and Free Speech Systems LLC), so a maximum of $1.5 million in punitive damages can be awarded.

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Roger Moore:Technically speaking, they already have.

    Actually, technically speaking that is for the bankruptcy court to decide. Or so said a lawyer I read yesterday. Made sense to me.

  60. 60.

    Scout211

    This week in bankruptcy court, Sandy Hook parents’ attorney asked the judge to stop Infowars bankruptcy paymentsto Alex Jones.

    The company’s attorneys told the bankruptcy judge on Wednesday that they were only making a “boring” request for permission to make routine payments on debts during the first weeks of its Chapter 11. The company filed for bankruptcy last Friday. read more
    But the Sandy Hook families said the company could not be trusted to make accurate statements about its finances. They also allege that Jones took $62 million from the company while burdening it with $65 million in “fabricated” debt owed to PQPR Holdings, a company owned by Jones and his parents.
    Lopez approved a two-week budget that would allow the company to pay its bills, but he limited the amount it could pay Jones and the company’s consultants during that period.

  61. 61.

    JML

    well, crap. Mom missed a step on a ladder and broke her hip. Her husband has dementia and has severely declined in the last few months (she’s covered it, mostly) and we haven’t been able to convince them to make long term plans…and now we gotta figure this all out on the fly.

    Ugh. UGH. UGH!!!

    Let this be a warning to you all: get your advance medical directives in order, and if anyone starts experiencing cognitive decline to start mapping out a plan with your loved ones immediately. Waiting in hope that you stroke out in the night is not a plan.

  62. 62.

    Ken

    @Scout211:  “They are not trade secrets, none of them,” Bankston told a Texas judge

    I’m trying to imagine what would constitute a trade secret for Infowars. “Lie and make shit up” doesn’t seem likely, and it’s the only technique they’ve got.

  63. 63.

    Ben Cisco

    I’ve been in IT since the late 90s – this reeks of homegrown, cut-rate, half-assed “IT” (in the same manner as “Wyngz” = wings). Just staggering in it’s idiocy.

  66. 66.

    NotMax

    Cap? What cap? As reported last week:

    $7 billion verdict awarded after Charter Spectrum tried to forge documents in a murder case

    A jury in Texas found Charter Communications liable for $7 billion in punitive damages this week as the result of a lawsuit from the family of Betty Jo McClain Thomas, an 83-year-old woman who was stabbed to death by one of its employees in December 2019. The $7 billion is in addition to $375 million in compensatory damages the jury assigned in June. Source

  71. 71.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Tom Levenson:

    I’ve been staying up way too late the past few nights watching the Alex Jones trial unfold on the Law & Crime YouTube channel. Just fascinating, in a small-bird-transfixed-by-the-gaze-of-a-cobra kind of way.

  72. 72.

    Feathers

    @kalakal: As someone who’s done admin support, it reminds me of situations where IT has told an exec/prof/lawyer not to do something and the response was “Hold my beer!”

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    @SiubhanDuinne: their current headline on the web page is “Billionaires’ best friend?”, bashing their buddy Sinema for finally signing on to vote ‘yes’ on Build Back Better Lite.

    LOL

    Those poor ‘conservatives’…they’ve had a rough week, that’s for sure.  Gas prices dropping, inflation easing, great jobs numbers, US killed a top terrorist.  And now their two best buds on the D side of the Senate are gonna give Dark Brandon another huge win.  =)

  78. 78.

    ArchPundit

    @Roger Moore: Yes, they have a sharing agreement in place and this was discussed yesterday with the judge saying that such sharing is not something she could interfere with even if she wanted to.

  79. 79.

    Kent

    @Baud: If he has a steady source of income, they can attach.  Like wage garnishment.  Otherwise, they can’t do much about future income until it’s in his hands

    That is all true.  But a big award also means that Jones will forever be faced with passing large portions of any future earnings onto to the plaintiffs.  He can’t simply just start from scratch and open up a new show or channel under some new corporate name.  Any future earnings he has from any future source will be forever subject to seizure.    He is a rat trapped in a cage of his own making.

  81. 81.

    different-church-lady

    @Jeffro: “Are democrats peaking too early for the midterms? We asked these five GOP political operatives.”

  82. 82.

    germy shoemangler

    Alex’s ex-wife is very interested in collecting some of his money now.  She has proof he’s been hiding assets from her.

    Alex Jones' ex-wife here, and I'm going to subpoena this data! Won a jury, lost my kids for blowing the whistle on infowars. Subpoena request will go out t o d a y. https://t.co/uu90cvQuOl

    — Kelly Jones (@RealKellyJones) August 3, 2022

  85. 85.

    Kent

    @Kenneth Fair: Bankston (the plaintiffs’ lawyer) can ask for anything he wants and the jury can award anything it wants to award in its verdict. But then the judge applies the law to the verdict to come up with the judgment. Under Texas law, a judgment cannot award punitive damages above the capped amount (with exceptions not applicable here). In this case, because the compensatory damages are all noneconomic damages (pain, suffering, mental anguish), the punitive damages are capped at $750,000 per defendant. There are two defendants (Jones and Free Speech Systems LLC), so a maximum of $1.5 million in punitive damages can be awarded.

    I don’t know whether or not any of these limits are, in fact true.  But this case is only about two of the plaintiffs.  There are dozens more Sandy Hook families waiting in the wings with their own lawsuits in both Texas and other jurisdictions.   Jones will be defending against these lawsuits for a LONG LONG time and they will all be getting their piece of him.   This is far from over as far as Jones is concerned

    The next lawsuits will be much easier because of all the discovery that has occurred in this one.

  87. 87.

    geg6

    @Baud: ​
     
    I read something yesterday that said he moved assets into shell companies in his parents’ names and then declared bankruptcy preemptively to this going to court.
    IANAL and I know next to nothing about shell companies and how to hide assets, but this sounds a bit illegal to me.

  89. 89.

    Another Scott

    @Fair Economist: Indeed, lots of good numbers.

    CalculatedRiskBlog has been tracking lots of numbers for a long time.  He’s said there’s no sign of a recession.  One of the number he pointed to recently is heavy truck sales are still very strong and they usually fall sharply before a recession.

    We still have to keep an eye on housing, but so far it looks like the economy has lots and lots of momentum to keep going and power through the recent issues with oil prices, etc.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  90. 90.

    C Stars

    @Spanky: Is the recent hopeful news a cause for concern? Our advertisers would like you to click here to find the (non) answer.

  91. 91.

    p.a.

    As bad as CNBC is, one reason Fox Business is an absolute ratings dog is that the money people know Fux News is bullshit so won’t waste their time sifting the business channel for info that might, rarely and accidentally, be accurate.

  92. 92.

    Spanky

    Speaking of business news, please don’t someone tell me that Roombas have cameras.

    (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc will acquire iRobot Corp ( IRBT ), maker of the robotic vacuum cleaner Roomba, in an all-cash deal for about $1.7 billion in the latest push by the world’s largest online retailer to expand its stable of smart home devices.

    Amazon ( AMZN ) will pay $61 per share, valuing iRobot at a premium of 22% to the stock’s last closing price of $49.99.

    iRobot’s stock rose 19% in Friday trading to $59.66. At its peak during pandemic lockdowns, iRobot shares were more than twice that price as hygiene-conscious consumers invested in premium vacuum cleaners.

  94. 94.

    cmorenc

    Meanwhile, Fox News’ website has done it’s best to bury recent developments in the Alex Jones trial – e.g. the incriminating disclosure of Jones’ messages etc.  The day the info came out, there was nada, zip at their website, although you can find a story that the jury awarded 4.1 million against him, but you gotta do a search to find it, cause it’s buried and /or only up briefly.

    Much more important to Fox to spotlight a busload of migrants arriving in NYC.

  97. 97.

    Baud

    @geg6:

    I don’t know if it’s “illegal” as in prosecutable. But it may be reversible if the court concludes that it was intended to hide assets.

  99. 99.

    geg6

    @HumboldtBlue: ​
     
    Isn’t it a good thing that we keep track of that here on this almost top 10,000 blog? Because you would never know from all the doom and gloom I see in the MSM.

  100. 100.

    geg6

    @Baud:

    I don’t know either, but it would seem to me that you have to make some sort of “statement” when you apply to a court for bankruptcy and, if you are misrepresenting your information, that would be a form of perjury, wouldn’t it?

    This is why I never ended up going to law school.  I can’t imagine arguing arcane, nitpicky stuff like this.

  104. 104.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

    Still a ways to go before November.  But the strategy of not reacting to Twitter trends does seem to be working for President Biden as well as it did for candidate Biden.

  107. 107.

    trollhattan

    @Spanky: Alexa can now legit stalk you.

    Roombas have to have cameras already, so now they’ll be able to communicate with ALL the IOT gadgets. Fridge to Roomba: “Hey, tell Alexa we’re out of beer.” “After I finish the kitchen and pantry.”

  109. 109.

    C Stars

    @Baud: The media does seem to be under mass hypnosis in thinking that Twitter trends mean anything more than…Twitter trends.

    I keep waiting for the Supposedly Serious media outlets to pick up on the fact that they are sabotaging their own credibility when they engage in this fallacy. TFG got them all Twitter-whipped.

  115. 115.

    Citizen Alan

    @Baud:  I don’t know the intricacies of Texas law, but  Defamation is an intentional tort and is non dischargeable in bankruptcy.

  117. 117.

    Citizen Alan

    @Tom Levenson:  Yes, Preferential and/or fraudulent transfers within the past 2 years prior to the date of filing a bankruptcy Can be avoided by the trustee and recovered for the benefit of creditors. They can also be used as grounds for dismissing the bankruptcy outright and barring him from refiling. And that’s before we get into the issue of potential outright bankruptcy fraud which can carry criminal penalties.

  118. 118.

    lee

    Just wanted to share 2 pieces of good news:

    1) Beto is closing the gap on Abbott in Texas
    2) Beto is coming to our town for a meeting and we are going.

  119. 119.

    Citizen Alan

    @James E Powell:  I’ve said for 20 years that BMW v Gore was wrongly decided decided, one of the few cases where  I actually supported a scalia descent over the majority. It was one of those weird 5 to 4 opinions that did not split on the usual liberal conservative axus.

  120. 120.

    karen marie

    @Baud: Sadly, I agree.  I thought $4m was a ridiculously low number given what Jones did to those families and how much money he’s made off their pain.

  122. 122.

    geg6

    @lee:

    Oh yay!  For both things!

    I so want TX to get rid of Abbott and elect Beto.  And lucky you to be going to see him.  He seems a very compelling speaker to me.

    Completely OT, but Wonderwall just started playing on my computer and I often wonder how two brothers who make such lovely music are such assholes, to each other and, apparently, everyone else.

  123. 123.

    Roger Moore

    @Another Scott:

    My impression is that the claims we’re in a recession are a result of the way the numbers were adjusted for inflation.  The headline inflation was so high the GDP went down after adjusting.  But that headline inflation was very high because of gas prices; if you used core inflation, the numbers were more reasonable.  People who had ulterior motives for wanting a recession were happy to go with those numbers, even though the broader picture said there wasn’t one.

  128. 128.

    Roger Moore

    @Citizen Alan: ​
     
    Can a bankruptcy court also determine that someone is the beneficial owner of assets they are not the official owner of, and thus make those assets part of the bankruptcy estate? It seems like the kind of thing they ought to be able to do.

  129. 129.

    David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Meanwhile, in jolly ole England the shite is hitting the fan for the Tories.

    Britain slides into crisis
    Bank chief warns of long recession
    Get used to the grim new reality
    Worst squeeze in 60 years predicted
    We face a year of recession and soaring interest rate
    Inflation set to hit 13%
    Worse outlook than US and EU
    Recession to cause record drop in income

    These shock headlines were all by …. (checks notes) …. Torie news organs.

  131. 131.

    trnc

    @Tony G: ​
     

    I “worked” in IT for forty years, and I cannot understand how this massive amount of data could have been “accidentally” sent to the plaintiffs

    That’s funny, because I work in IT and I’d say that people unintentionally moving their files is part of my job security.

  132. 132.

    Roger Moore

    @karen marie:

    I thought $4m was a ridiculously low number given what Jones did to those families and how much money he’s made off their pain.

    Unfortunately, compensatory damages can only cover their damages, not Jones’s benefit.  Punitive damages are supposed to cover the latter, but the right wing has constantly fought to neuter them.  These are, of course, the same people who talk about the importance of lawsuits as a way of keeping corporations in check, only to fight for “tort reform” to make it impossible for anyone to use lawsuits that way.

  133. 133.

    jonas

    @Roger Moore:. The forensic accountants are going to earn their fees on this one.

    Although if he and his advisers are as clueless and careless about hiding his financial assets as they are about emails and texts, it might not take that long…

  134. 134.

    Geminid

    @Roger Moore: The Corporate Transparency Act passed in the 2020 “lame duck” session is supposed to require corporations to disclose beneficial ownership of shell corporations. I don’t know how well the Act is working, but at the time a Forbes Magazine reporter said it would be far reaching. The Act was attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, and Congress overrode trump’s veto to enact the NDAA. This did not get much attention at the time because so much else was going on.

    I have little knowledge in this area, but the CTA may bear on Jones’ attempts to hide assets. The act applied immediately to new corporations. Existing corporations had two years to comply, until early in next January.

  135. 135.

    Ken

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: See, that is professionalism. I would have found it hard to resist something like:

    Doocy: Why is the President bragging today about gas prices?

    Ken: You would prefer he brag about his golf score or TV ratings?

    Or possibly:

    Ken: I don’t know, but then I don’t know why people blamed him when they went up. Given that, I guess it makes sense that he gets credit when they go down, right?

  136. 136.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Anyway: Yeah, he needs to be de-platformed in several senses of the word.

    (I’m not ready to suggest the sort of de-platforming that was performed in Nuremberg in 1946, not yet, at least for him, but depending on what the January 6 Committee and the Justice Department see in that phone archive…)

  137. 137.

    Gin & Tonic

    Reportedly another $1B in arms for Ukraine. A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.

  138. 138.

    Mike in NC

    OT: TV reporting that President Biden will travel to Kentucky next week to survey flooding damage in the state. A reminder (as if one is needed) of how the Fat Orange Clown always showed up after some natural disaster to essentially blame the victims, since he didn’t have a molecule of empathy or decency in his entire bloated body. Showed up after a hurricane devasted Puerto Rico and infamously threw a few rolls of paper towels at people, then quickly left to play golf at one of his properties, because as a New York City slumlord he despised Puerto Ricans.

  144. 144.

    HumboldtBlue

    Indiana state Rep. John L. Bartlett proposed an amendment Thursday to a bill as ludicrous as the anti-abortion bill the state is attempting to pass. The congressman suggested that if pregnancy was “an act of god,” then “impotency” must also be. Obviously, he was illustrating a point about bodily autonomy.

    “We’re forcing young girls to mothers, but not forcing the men to be fathers,” Bartlett argues. “This bill makes it illegal to prescribe, distribute, or supply erectile dysfunction drugs or sexual impotency drugs. If, in fact, pregnancy is an act of god, then impotency must be an act of god,” Bartlett says.

  145. 145.

    trollhattan

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: We don’t REALLY need comic relief at pressers, but Doocy’s gonna Doocy.

    “You got beat up, by a girrrrrl” must comprise two-thirds of his voice mails.

  147. 147.

    H-Bob

    @Citizen Alan: Rather than dismissing the bankruptcy, a better route might be to require substantive consolidation of all of the Jones entities and shell companies into the bankruptcy.  Then the entire structure gets disclosed and supervised by the bankruptcy court.  The plaintiffs’ bankruptcy attorneys can scrutinize the whole structure and every transaction between the companies, and even ask the court to put Jones on an allowance.  That scrutiny would be even more painful to him.

  148. 148.

    Jackie

    Off topic: Is the debate re the Inflation Reduction Act going to be televised on C-Span this weekend? Watching republicans whining and wailing could be entertaining!

  150. 150.

    gene108

    @kalakal:

    just a collection of laptops with files being swapped by dropbox, usb sticks or whatever. No actual system at all

    My experience working with auditors is exactly this. There’s a shared drive or folder online somewhere, where documents are manually uploaded. There are restrictions on who has access to the folder/drive.

    I’m assuming law offices and accounting offices have similar setups.

    I’m not sure how to prevent uploading MS Word documents, PDF’s, etc., which are the types of documents that are typically uploaded based solely on their content. There can be restrictions on the file size and file formats the folder/drive can accept.

    I’m assuming the text messages were probably sent in a document format of some kind.

  151. 151.

    geg6

    OT in a open thread…

    If I have to listen that awful Kate Bush song again, I’m going to throw my computer against the wall.  I hated it when it came out ages ago and I hate it even more now because it’s everywhere I go.  It was not even close to that popular when it was originally released.  So irritating.  Multiple streaming services and all they play is that stupid song.

  153. 153.

    Ken

    @geg6: I’ve been following Chris Grey’s Brexit Blog and from what he’s been saying, the Tories have been forced to admit the UK has a few undoubtedly-transient economic issues, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any that link them to Brexit. I think blaming the French is popular, as it has been for several centuries.

  156. 156.

    beckya57

    @Laertes: This concurs with the lawyers I’ve been reading on Twitter, eg @popehat. As I understand it (disclaimer: not a lawyer) the maximum possible judgment is about $44 million.  For most people that would be catastrophic, but for Jones it’s a cost of doing business (reportedly his online store makes $800,000 A DAY).  Unless some of the other lawsuits are in states with bigger allowances than TX he will probably survive, unfortunately.

  159. 159.

    jonas

    @lee: ​
     

    1) Beto is closing the gap on Abbott in Texas

    Good to hear. I’ll believe he has a real shot, though, when he’s up by 5.

  160. 160.

    Geminid

    @Jackie: I don’t get TV of any kind but I’m hoping that the New Republic’s Capitol Hill reporter, Grace Segers, will be reporting the course of the IRA on Twitter @GraceSegers. She’s a good resource.

  161. 161.

    Old School

    @geg6:

    It was not even close to that popular when it was originally released.

    Billboard Hot 100 (1985): #30

    Billboard Hot 100 (2022): #3

  162. 162.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Roger Moore:

    Less explicable, but still within the realm of the possible, is that Jones’s lawyers didn’t respond within 10 days saying the material had been shared accidentally and should be treated as privileged.

    One explanation I’ve seen floating around Legal Twitter, is that responding would mean admitting they had documents, subpoenaed a year ago, that they wrongly withheld from the plaintiffs.

    I’m not quite sure what the thinking was, but maybe they hope to argue that the underpants gnome not only made the documents available, but was the gnome was the one who actually had those records to begin with — which is why Jones’ lawyers said a year ago that these records didn’t exist. “Honestly Your Honor, we had no idea the gnome had hidden the records away….”

  164. 164.

    Jackie

    @Baud: Yes. I’m hoping YouTube will carry it live. I dropped cable/DISH three years ago. I’ve never felt inclined to watch C-Span until now lol. I want to be watching if Lindsey has a stroke! He’s threatening WAR and HELL and DAMNATION against this Bill! Lol

  165. 165.

    James E Powell

    @zhena gogolia:

    I never heard it before either & I haven’t even started the most recent season of Stranger Things. I kept seeing Kate Bush & the song title, but had no idea what was going on.

    This is kind of normal for me.

  166. 166.

    coin operated

    @trnc:

    That’s funny, because I work in IT and I’d say that people unintentionally moving their files is part of my job security.

    This.  I’m a storage engineer and I get paid to ensure there’s at least one other copy of *everything* in case something gets corrupted / deleted / moved / etc…

    @gene108:

    I’m not sure how to prevent uploading MS Word documents, PDF’s, etc., which are the types of documents that are typically uploaded based solely on their content. There can be restrictions on the file size and file formats the folder/drive can accept.

    Most modern document management systems can scan the contents of anything uploaded into it and put the proper access control on it.  They’re spendy systems…but not as spendy as a malpractice suit.

    *edited for redundancy

  169. 169.

    jonas

    I’m not a lawyer, but I do have two eyes and two ears, and god damn is Jones’ representation team, led by F. Andino Reynal, incompetent.

    This seems to be a thing on the right. Giuliani, Wood, Powell, Toensing…. It’s a clown car of legal buffoonery.

  170. 170.

    NotMax

    @Geminid

    FYI.

    What if I don’t subscribe to cable or satellite TV?

    C‑SPAN.org: You are able to use C‑SPAN.org to watch our live coverage of all federal government events. All visitors to C‑SPAN.org will have access to House and Senate debates, committee hearings, executive branch events, courts coverage, campaign events and Washington Journal — live and without needing to sign in. You will also continue to have free access to our online Video Library containing more than 277,000 hours of archived video from C‑SPAN — on demand to watch anytime, anywhere.

    C‑SPAN Now: Our video app provides livestreams of the House, Senate and top political events. Additionally, you will find on-demand video of the latest events, highlights and recent episodes of Washington Journal and Q&A. All of that can be watched without a cable or satellite subscription. Source

    General info portal. Schedule guide for C-SPAN2 (Senate session tentatively to air live from Noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday).

  171. 171.

    jonas

    @coin operated: ​
      My guess is that some genius named the drive and the file the same thing and thought they were uploading a single file, but ended up transferring the whole drive and didn’t realize it.

  172. 172.

    germy shoemangler

    What Makes Andino Reynal Uniquely Qualified To Represent You?
    Appointed by Eric Holder to serve as a federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Texas, Andino Reynal was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force. While at the United States Attorney’s Office, Andino successfully tried white-collar cases, public corruption cases, and major drug trafficking cases.

    Andino left the United States Attorney’s Office in 2012. Since then he has been invited back into public service to act as a special prosecutor for Harris County and a member of the U.S. Magistrate Judge Selection/Review Committee.

  174. 174.

    Captain C

    @David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I’m guessing it’s very possible that Lord Flobalob and the rest of the COVID partying Brexiteer Tories somehow forgot that they no longer have an empire to suck dry in lieu of being a member-with-special-privileges of the world’s largest trading bloc.  They definitely forgot that it’s always a bad idea to piss off people you depend on for your prosperity (just like they probably have never known not to be awful to the people who handle one’s food).

  176. 176.

    gwangung

    Yeah, but if there are one or two wing nuts on the jury, Jones is going get away with just the $4 million charge, which is chump change for him.

  177. 177.

    Another Scott

    Speaking of damage… ProPublica:

    But now, in the name of combating climate change, the administration of President Joe Biden and the Democratic leadership in Congress are poised to vanquish Jarrell and other pipeline opponents. For months, the nation has wondered what price Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin would extract to allow a major climate change bill. Part of that price turns out to be clearing the way for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

    “It’s a hard pill to swallow,” said Jarrell, a former golf course manager who has devoted much of his retirement to writing protest letters, filing complaints with regulatory agencies and attending public hearings about the pipeline. “We’re once again a sacrifice zone.”

    The White House and congressional leaders have agreed to step in and ensure final approval of all permits that the Mountain Valley Pipeline needs, according to a summary released by Manchin’s office Monday evening. The agreement, which would require separate legislation, would also strip jurisdiction over any further legal challenges to those permits from a federal appeals court that has repeatedly ruled that the project violated the law.

    The provisions, according to the summary, will “require the relevant agencies to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline” and would shift jurisdiction “over any further litigation” to a different court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

    In essence, the Democratic leadership accepted a 303-mile, two-state pipeline fostering continued use of fossil fuels in exchange for cleaner energy and reduced greenhouse emissions nationwide. Manchin has been pushing publicly for the pipeline to be completed, arguing it would move much needed energy supplies to market, promote the growth of West Virginia’s natural gas industry and create well-paid construction jobs.

    […]

    Approval for the pipeline may not be a done deal. Both senators from Virginia, where the pipeline is also a hot political issue, are signaling that they don’t feel bound by Manchin’s agreement with the leadership. Manchin’s own announcement said that Democratic leaders have “committed to advancing” the pipeline legislation — not that the bill would pass. Regional and national environmental groups are walking a fine line. They support the climate change legislation while opposing weakening the permit process.

    The pipeline’s neighbors say they’ll keep fighting, but they recognize that the odds are against them. “You just feel like you’re not an equal citizen when you’re dealing with Mountain Valley Pipeline,” Jarrell said.

    More at the link.

    Virginia Mercury:

    Originally expected to be completed by 2018, Mountain Valley Pipeline has been hampered by staunch opposition in both Virginia and West Virginia, hundreds of environmental violations and a string of successful legal challenges in the 4th Circuit that have repeatedly stripped the project of necessary federal permits. Construction has proved especially halting along a Southwest Virginia corridor that crosses through part of the Jefferson National Forest in Giles, Craig and Montgomery counties.

    This summer, with few immediate breakthroughs evident, the developers sought permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has authority over pipeline construction, to extend its deadline another four years.

    With delays and costs mounting, investors have become increasingly skeptical that the pipeline will ever be completed. In a February filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, project investor NextEra Energy wrote that “continued legal and regulatory challenges have resulted in a very low probability of pipeline completion.”

    The deal with Manchin could change all that.

    Amid news of the agreement, shares in lead pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream soared to a three-month high Tuesday.

    […]

    Regardless of the Manchin deal, Kaine on Tuesday emphasized the need for reforms to federal pipeline permitting, saying he thought FERC’s initial review of Mountain Valley had been “shoddy.”

    “I view many of the controversies that are connected with the Mountain Valley Pipeline as having been sort of stoked by an inadequate federal permitting process through FERC,” he said, citing “in particular the unwillingness or inability of FERC to get information out to the public and appropriately take public comment and then take that into account in terms of deciding (a) whether a pipeline was necessary and (b) whether the proposed route was the right route.”

    A Kaine spokesperson later said the senator believes improving permitting “is preferable to having members of Congress decide outcomes on individual energy infrastructure projects.”

    Both Kaine and Warner, as well as Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, have previously proposed federal legislation to change the federal review process for proposals and clarify when eminent domain can be exercised. Those bills were crafted in response to not only Mountain Valley Pipeline but the Dominion Energy and Duke Energy-backed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have stretched from West Virginia to North Carolina via Virginia but was canceled in July 2020.

    Politics is a messy business. It’s not over, and even if Manchin “wins” it doesn’t necessarily mean the pipeline will be built. Improvements to the permitting process and public notice and comment, so that the court don’t have to get involved so often to tell the approving bodies to do their jobs properly, would be a good thing.

    (IIRC, some of the LNG exports that are talked about going to Europe (to replace Russian gas) would potentially come (at least in part) from this pipeline.)

    We’ll see.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  178. 178.

    MomSense

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    It also seems that didn’t produce documents that were requested in the discovery process and that probably contributed to the situation. From time served in law offices, going through that process honestly would have forced them to separate documents and store them properly before they had to produce exhibits.

    It also seems to me that Jones’ on the fly witness stand riffing on how he meant to produce those documents will get his lawyer off the hook on malpractice claims.
    Or maybe the lawyer just said fuck it this guy is THE SCUM OF THE EARTH and his broke ass can take it up with my liability insurance provider.

  179. 179.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JML:

    Oh gosh, JML, what a huge worry for you! I’m so sorry you’re going through all this. I have no useful advice or insights, but please know I — and scores of co-jackals — are here to support you. Big hefty hugs to you, gentle hugs to your mom, and whatever words or gestures help connect to your (ETA: step- ) dad.

  180. 180.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    From NYT: Total punitive damages: $45.2 million

    Next update from them: Jones’s lawyer is objecting, saying that the verdict does not comply with the law, which in Texas limits the actual award to $750,000 per plaintiff, so a total of $1.5 million for Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis.

  184. 184.

    Wapiti

    @geg6: That’s funny, I was a huge Kate Bush fan; though that wasn’t my favorite song it gives me joy when I hear it. There was a cover on the radio in the last 6 months (in which the horn bits were more brassy), but that’s been eclipsed by the original.

  185. 185.

    SiubhanDuinne

    O/T:

    Boy oh boy oh boy. FTFNYT never saw a silver lining where they couldn’t find a big dark thundercloud:

    Good News on Jobs May Mean Bad News Later as Hiring Spree Defies Fed

  191. 191.

    Ken

    @SiubhanDuinne: Bah. Why go with “may mean bad news later” when you can have certainty?  Say, something like

    Good News on Jobs But in Eight Billion Years Sun Will Engulf and Destroy Earth

  194. 194.

    Ken

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: limits the actual award to $750,000 per plaintiff

    I don’t suppose there’s any chance the shell companies Jones has been creating can be added to the list of plaintiffs. At least, not for this trial — he may regret it as the others move forward.

  195. 195.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    Judge has left so it sounds like no cap on the damages? That’s awesome. And there is another damages trial next month for the parents of Noah Pozner. Jones isn’t going to have a pot to piss in after all this. GOOD.

    ETA from WaPo: “The total of $49.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages is less than a third of the $150 million total that the family was seeking, and it remains to be seen how much of the punitive damages the parents will ultimately receive as Texas laws cap such rewards.”

    So…it might get slashed, which is bullshit. But any penny they get out of him is one less he has to keep living his miserable, evil life.

  196. 196.

    Dan B

    @JML: Sorry to hear about your parents.  The elderly in the USA get some safety net but it’s often for miserable care instead of horrifying neglect.  Best of luck with the broken hip.

  199. 199.

    Dan B

    @Origuy: “World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon”  Juanita Jean

    I read her blog for years.  Now it’s Mother of the World’s Most Famous Lawyer.

  202. 202.

    randy khan

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:

    Since a Texas jury just awarded $7 billion in punitive damages in a case involving Charter Communications, there obviously are exceptions, but I have no idea what they are or whether they apply.

  204. 204.

    R'Chard

    Regardless, let’s just hope it goes on and on and on… heck, he ain’t even 50 yet. There could be plenty of sad ugly years ahead.

  205. 205.

    glc

    45.2 million punitive damages.

    “Whether the cap will apply will likely be decided in an appeals process.”

  206. 206.

    Laertes

    @glc: Okay, that makes me happy. I’d gotten the idea that maybe the judge would cut it down right then and there.

    I like that Jones has to go to bed with that number hanging over his head. May the appeals take years.

  210. 210.

    TheOtherHank

    I worked at Large Pharm Inc a while ago and we had a collaboration with another company where they did genome sequencing for us and we downloaded it onto our storage cluster. By the terms of the collaboration and the informed consent of those who were having their genomes sequenced we could only have one copy of the genome files (where the big files were as large as 300GB each), so no backups. We had settings in place to make sure that no inadvertent deletion took place (ie, no deleting allowed). But sometimes an individual would withdraw their consent and we had to delete one set of files. So we relaxed the rules and were very careful and then turned the rules back on. I came back from vacation one day to find out that one of the other folks on my team had gone in to do a deletion and inadvertently deleted data that was going to cost a minimum of $1,000,000 to reproduce. Amazingly, he was not fired.

  214. 214.

    Matt McIrvin

    There are lawsuits pending in other states as well, and Jones could already be guilty of perjury, so this is just beginning.

  216. 216.

    burnspbesq

    @GoBlueInOak:

    Depends on the percentage of jury that are middle aged white guys.

    It’s Travis County. Austin’s middle-aged white guys might surprise you.

    Round these parts, Jones is viewed as a civic embarrassment.

Comments are closed.