Friday, October 14, 2022

Alex Jones: Goblins and Frogs

To commemorate Alex Jones being ordered to pay nearly one billion dollars in damages to the families of eight Sandy Hook shooting victims, I suggest watching Mr. Jones deliver the following two rants on his INFOWARS internet show (remixes courtesy of Placeboing)....
 
Gay Frogs (Alex Jones REMIX)


Goblins (Alex Jones REMIX):
 


Meanwhile, FORBES has published an extensive article about the state of Jones' assets. Here's an excerpt from Jemima McEvoy's 10-13-22 article entitled "Alex Jones Likely Doesn’t Have $1 Billion. He Does Own Five Homes In Texas, Though.":

The far-right radio host Alex Jones was handed a staggering punishment on Wednesday when he was ordered by a Connecticut court to pay $965 million to families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre for a years-long misinformation campaign centered around a lie that the deadly elementary school shooting was an elaborate hoax.

It’s very unlikely that Jones, who runs the conspiracy-theory riddled website InfoWars, has a ten-figure fortune to spare. In fact, while reacting to the verdict on his radio show on Wednesday, Jones claimed he’s worth no more than $2 million and quipped, “That’s hilarious… Do these people really think they’re getting their money?” Because Jones lacks the funds to pay his fine, legal experts say his personal assets could be on the line, including a significant real estate portfolio owned by the InfoWars host in Texas.

Forbes identified five homes collectively worth an estimated $7.5 million linked to Jones in Austin, including two condos in the downtown-adjacent South Lamar neighborhood; a luxurious waterfront property overlooking the Colorado river with a private boat dock, sauna and basketball court; a four-bedroom home just outside the city; and an almost 5,500 square foot Spanish villa style home overlooking Austin’s famous Barton Creek Greenbelt.

As The New York Post first reported in August, Jones transferred ownership of the most valuable of these properties, the Spanish-style estate by Barton Creek, which is worth an estimated $3.5 million, to his wife Erika Wulff Jones, in February as multiple defamation cases against him neared trial. One of the two condos in South Lamar has Jones’ father, David Jones, listed as a beneficiary. (Neither Jones’ lawyer, Norm Pattis, nor InfoWars, responded to requests for comments from Forbes.)

Outside of his real estate, it’s not clear how much Jones’ other assets are worth. Bernard Pettingill, Jr., a forensic economist who testified in a separate defamation case against Jones earlier this year in Texas, estimated Jones’ net worth to be between $135 million and $270 million due to the strong financial performance of InfoWars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems. According to Pettingill, InfoWars averaged $53.2 million in annual revenue between September 2015 and December 2018, and brought in $64 million in 2021. The economist said Jones was at one point paying himself $6 million a year.

To read McEvoy's entire article, click HERE

In related news, journalist Spencer S. Hsu published a report in the 10-6-22 edition of the WASHINGTON POST entitled "First Proud Boys Leader Pleads Guilty to Jan. 6 Seditious Conspiracy," brief excerpts of which follow:

A lieutenant of longtime former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio became the group’s first member to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot on Thursday, deepening the government’s case against an organization accused of mobilizing violence to prevent the inauguration of Joe Biden.

Jeremy Bertino, 43, of Belmont, N.C., agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department against Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders with ties to influential Donald Trump supporters Roger Stone and Alex Jones. The Proud Boys defendants are set to face trial in December on charges including plotting to oppose by force the presidential transition, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly in Washington, Bertino pleaded guilty to that count and to one count of illegal possession of firearms as a former felon, punishable by 51 to 63 months in prison at sentencing under advisory federal guidelines, prosecutors said.

In a sign of the sensitivity and potential importance of Bertino’s testimony, prosecutors agreed that in exchange for “substantial cooperation,” they could seek leniency at sentencing and enter Bertino into a Justice Department witness protection program.

In plea papers, Bertino said Proud Boys leaders “agreed that the election had been stolen, that the purpose of traveling to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, was to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote, and that the [Ministry of Self Defense] leaders were willing to do whatever it would take, including using force against police and others, to achieve that objective.”

He admitted that at least two days earlier he received encrypted chat messages indicating that members of the Proud Boys leadership group who called themselves the Ministry of Self Defense “believed that storming the Capitol would achieve the group’s goal” and would require using violence [...].

Bertino’s testimony could implicate Tarrio, a former aide to GOP strategist Stone, and co-defendant Joe Biggs, a former employee of Jones’s online Infowars show. Stone and Jones are two prominent right-wing figures who promoted Trump’s incendiary and baseless assertions that the election was stolen.

To read Hsu's entire article, click HERE.

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