Morgan Stringer breaks down Alex Jones’ legal battles, noting the $1.5B judgment in Texas isn’t enforceable yet due to a consent deal, while Connecticut’s Norm Pattis seeks to slash damages or retry—unlikely. Jones’ December 2nd bankruptcy filings may stall cases but won’t erase debts under Section 523A6, exposing his dubious $20K/biweekly salary claims. Courts reject his delay tactics, with judges like Garrett Gamble enforcing accountability over disinformation. Stringer’s work counters Alex’s trauma-profiting narrative, framing the fight as justice for victims, not just money, and credits legal professionals for standing against grifters. [Automatically generated summary]
So, do you know, you're aware, Jordan, of how you get really mad when the media reports things about Alex and then it turns out to not really be that thing?
So, speaking of that, I have the same thing, where I'll...
Oh, of course.
They need to stop.
So yeah, I'm just so frustrated because I see the headline and I see some tweets, you know, that of course have 50,000 likes on them by this point saying, oh, Alex doesn't have to pay the $1.5 billion judgment, or he does have to pay that $1.5 billion judgment and a judge has, you know, taken away his ability to fight it.
And that's not what happened.
At all.
So I thought I was crazy, actually, because I was saying, well, you know, this outlet is saying this happened, and I don't remember that happening.
Have I, you know, blacked out somehow and remembered something different?
And no, it turns out I was right.
So there is a consent judgment in place, which means that both Alex and the plaintiffs are agreeing to this.
Yeah, so what happened is the families who have already had their cases heard, those cases, they have lifted the stay on that.
But the only things that are left are, I guess, the formal entry of judgment in the Texas case, which that case has already been...
You know, basically he's already done, and it's just so the judge can enter the judgment.
And then in Connecticut, the only two motions left are Norm has a motion of remittator, which means he wants the judge to reduce the judgment in the Connecticut case because the number is big.
I mean, when you're looking at a number like 1.5 billion, honestly, I feel like that's a reasonable ask, just to be like, this number's bigger than I understand.
I mean, yes, when you divide it up by 15 people, and then you hear everything that happened, and you hear the testimony in that courtroom, I could see where some people would say, oh, that's not even enough.
Yeah, well, you're kind of right on the money there when you're talking about, you know, people like Robbie Parker, who did get about, I want to say total amount was $200 million, but including the punitives and everything, how it shakes out.
But yeah, so that's not what happened.
What happened, though, is that the judgment has been lifted onto those cases just for procedural issues to go forward.
Norm also has a motion for a new trial, which...
Everybody knows.
Norm even knows it.
His motions are going to get denied.
But basically, the bankruptcy court is saying, yeah, those judgments can go ahead and be entered, and then you can proceed with the appeals process in those cases.
Now, the Fontaine case and the Posner case, those are still stayed.
Right, right, right, right.
So, yeah, that's what's happening there.
It was not a judge saying, oh, Alex has to write a check tomorrow, you know, and that's what I feel like a lot of people got wrong here.
And also, I did want to say this hasn't come up yet.
It has kind of come up in the background of the conversations, as I've kind of read between the lines, as I've listened to the attorneys speak in these hearings with Judge Lopez in the bankruptcy court.
But Bankruptcy Code Section 523A6 actually prevents a debtor from being discharged for any debt for the willful and malicious injury by the debtor to another entity or to the property of another entity.
So actually, willful and malicious injuries cannot be discharged in bankruptcy regardless.
right?
So I really just think that these bankruptcies, you know, the personal one and the company one, is Alex delaying.
Because what I noticed was when I watched the latest Texas hearing...
I saw Mark essentially saying, okay, well, we're fine to go ahead and schedule Fontaine and Posner because we can proceed against Alex Jones individually.
And, you know, lo and behold, December 2nd, he files for personal bankruptcy.
I think that this is going to end up backfiring on him.
I think his strategy here is that he is going to try to, you know, drag these families out.
They're going to have to go through the whole bankruptcy process.
There's, you know, creditor committee and the personal one.
There's, you know, they're going to have to submit plans to repay debt and negotiate all that out between all the creditors and the company one.
So I think what he, and then there's the appeals process.
And I think what Alex is doing here is he's trying to, number one, buy more time for himself.
And number two, wear these families down, hoping that they'll settle.
So if I understand correctly, Alex's bankruptcy lawyer said to a judge, how about pay me almost three times as much every two weeks, and the reason is because I would like three times as much every two weeks.
Because to see him on a street performing mime, naturally, he would have to be in the most public of spaces with the only restriction being he can't talk, of course.
That one's a good start.
I think the other funny side job would be the person who feeds lions and then accidentally falls in in an Indiana Jones movie.
Yeah, there is, actually, which, you know, I've been, with all seriousness, I have been thanked by it, and I can't believe that they found anything of value as to what, you know, I've said.
But basically, yeah, so I...
You know, I've told you, you know, we talked about this earlier, where I'm not a big fan of a lot of legal reporting.
And also, I'm not a fan of a lot of legal analysts.
And Law and Crime was covering, you know, the first, or they actually covered the Connecticut trial.
But I knew they were going to do a shameful job on that.
And also, I knew a lot of bad actors were probably going to, you know, talk about the Texas trial and how, oh, poor Alex is being railroaded.
And I really did not want that to happen.
So what I do, because, I don't know, something is wrong with me, was I decided to throw myself into the abyss and I said, okay, I'm going to watch this entire trial and I'm going to just say what's happening and then give my legal analysis where I think I have some or give, you know, oh, this is what I would do or, you know, this is why I think Mark Bankston is doing X and here's, you know, where Renal is probably screwing up and needs to, you know, change tactics.
And Andrew said, when I told him about it, he said, I have no idea what the fuck that man was talking about.
And also, just, you know what's going south, which I always say, juries are mysterious creatures.
You don't want to, you know, get inside their heads too much and psych yourself out, because who knows when groups of people come together, you know, what...
They're going to care about versus what they're not going to care about.
That's why I really like the jury questions in Texas.
But anyway, so, but you know it's going bad.
When the jurors were, you know, avoiding eye contact with Norm, and he acknowledged that in his closing, like, oh, some of you are looking away, you know, and it's just, oh man, that was just so rough, and...
Yeah, but I also think that this strategy was dumb because there are trustees assigned to bankruptcy cases, and there's a whole conversation about, oh, well, Alex is just going to get on the stand and lie, and we know how often, you know, perjury isn't prosecuted, especially for a civil case, right?
They are for bankruptcy.
Fraud on a bankruptcy.
Yeah, there are people assigned in every bankruptcy case.
It's called a trustee.
And what they do is they basically kind of, most of the time, they're just overseeing to make sure of a bankruptcy court and, you know, it's going along smoothly and everything's working according to procedure.
And because of the types of bankruptcy that he has filed here, you have a little bit more supervision here from a U.S. trustee.
And basically what they can do is, it's their job, essentially, one of their major jobs is to look for fraud and make sure fraud isn't being done.
And if they suspect it, they refer it to the Department of Justice.
And it gets investigated or oftentimes prosecuted.
And a lot of times when that happens, they uncover a bunch of other crimes because chances are if you're lying to the bankruptcy court, you're probably not, you know, up and up on the up and up on your books, right?
Yes, and you have to disclose these different assets, which I think, to me, I was thinking, well, I would be paying especially close attention here because...
It might indicate where he has hidden some of his assets.
Sure.
I was bewildered when he did.
It's another delay tactic, and I think he's trying to get these families again to settle and just agree to a lesser amount just so he goes away.
I mean, his behavior has been completely shameful.
What you joined them for is so that it can go a lot smoother and easier.
And both trustees, so it wasn't just a personal bankruptcy trustee, but the one for his corporate bankruptcy chimed in and said, yeah, what that guy said, basically.
Which was, I've never seen two trustees file, you know, motions like that.
But they're essentially saying, no, this is actually going to make it more chaotic because what applies to Alex personally may not apply to the company personally under the law.
And vice versa.
And you're just going to have this confusion, which, you know, I'm willing to bet Alex also was hoping he could work to his advantage because he essentially is, at the end of the day, this destructive agent of chaos.
Why not do that in bankruptcy proceedings as well?
And the trustees are, you know, very strongly indicating to the court, absolutely not.
Judge Gamble was talking about these kind of principles and how she said that the cap should not apply and she was going to go ahead and enter judgment for the entire thing because she takes her oath seriously.
She took an oath to the Constitution.
She took an oath, you know, but to also do what's fair.
And she said, this case is unique.
This was a horrible thing that happened here.
And this is the only recourse for these families.
And I just, I'm so glad that somebody is finally saying, you know, at the end of the day, justice is also about fairness and what is right.
And you don't want to incentivize people to say, oh, well, if I just don't participate in discovery, I can just drag this thing out along and this is the most, you know, this is the biggest number I'm going to have to write on the check.
When you take a look at, I mean, I just brought up a Venn diagram, but when you take a look at what has, I mean, ultimately, strangely enough, brought us all together, you know, Dan and I and Mark and all of the lawyers and yourself and everybody, is the thing that drives us, which is that...
This shit is unfair.
This is wrong.
And at the end of the day, all of us, I feel like, are just unable to not watch that in the same way that...
Everybody looks at us and goes, you're insane for recording 700 episodes.
I'm sure people look at you and say, you're insane for watching all of these hearings.
And it drove Mark insane to watch all of that Infowars.
But yeah, I think that these things are what does draw us, because when you talk to Mark, when you talk to people like me, what ultimately drove me into law school, I think, is that at the end of the day, I was always the kid who said, when you would say to your parents, that's not fair, and they'd say, well, life's not fair.
And I would respond, why isn't it?
And nobody knew what to say to that, you know?
Like, you don't expect, like, that's kind of disturbing to hear from a child, if I'm being honest, but I probably lost all my serotonin by the time I was 10, so, but it's fine, so, yeah.
Between him and Norm and what happened where, and it's just...
Yeah, I'm not sure exactly.
That one I have not been following as closely, but I did find, so for the last Texas trial as well, you know, Renal has his own attorney, which it's never a good situation when you have a nesting doll of attorneys.
Yeah, so this Christopher Martin, he is representing Infowars, but they said Renal, when he said in the last Texas hearing, Renal said he is still the attorney on the Posner and Fontaine cases.
So I'm not sure exactly what's all going on there, but I suspect that there will be some kind of disciplinary action towards probably Norm and Renal at this point, particularly with sanctions being asked for, you know, for their behavior.
So one of the first things I did working with Andrew is actually got sanctions against another attorney, which I was brand new out of law school, and he had been practicing law probably longer than I've been alive.
Yeah, and I don't necessarily enjoy, like, I don't want to go, I'm not saying that every attorney is like this and every attorney is bad or that I even like pursuing, but there are.
There are particular attorneys who are truly just being absolutely wild, and you need to say, hey.
Well, I'm always, you know, I've been labeled a firebrand in the past, which, you know, some people say that's a bad thing, and I always take it as a compliment.
You know what they say about being the 16th lawyer on the case, though, is we've got a great baseball team and we're really going to take it to the other associates this year.
Yeah, it reminds me of, you know, a scene from Arrested Development where they talk about, you know, an open marriage, opening up a marriage and Tobias says, it never works, but it might work for us.
I think even the plaintiff's attorneys, Bankston and Bill and Wes Ball, And Farrar and all of them were even shocked at them bringing in a 16th lawyer now.
I mean, honestly, I'm kind of shocked Alex hasn't asked me at this point.
I would do a better job.
I know everything about these cases because I've been to every hearing.
It's funny whenever he'll have a lawyer that's like, oh, well, you know, I need to get caught up on everything.
And it's like, wow, I'm caught up and I'm not even doing this for a living.
Yeah, which might show, again, like, sort of how, you know, maybe you might see that as a bit deranged.
But, I mean, I found it useful, and also I'm a night owl, so I do my day job at night, and, you know, and I just thought this was important.
And I knew that people were going to screw it up when they talked about this, and I think that this is a case that is really setting valuable precedent.
I think that there are ways that we can tackle disinformation in the legal world.
And I actually think this is a really good way to do it.
Because these people who aren't public figures are now being dragged through the mud by these bad actors.
And it's about time somebody stood up and do something and say, this is enough.
It's a horrible process, and I would understand why somebody would choose not to pursue that, because, I mean, you've seen how long this is going and how he's doing the bankruptcy shenanigans and everything, but...
You know, but eventually somebody's got to stand up to a bully, which is what Infowars is and what a lot of these disinformation outlets are.
They're bullies.
They're trying to, you know, cause people to be harassed.
They're trying to make money off of people's hatred and anger and divisions.
It's, you know, somebody ought to do something about that.
We've said it time and time again that one of the things that we despise the most about a lot of the coverage of the trials regarding the Sandy Hook families is just that simple sentence of like, the families are looking for $500 million or something.
The families are requesting $500 million or something like that.
And it is...
Just such a simple signal that is just wrong, which is they're not requesting money at all.
They're stopping this guy.
You need him stopped, and I need him stopped, and they're doing that, and money is how it happens.
That's like saying money is the sword in this situation, not something that they're requesting from him.
Yeah, and that is an interesting way, actually, to frame it in that, you know, it's not about the money.
And, you know, there's been people that have said things like, oh, well, you know, they've sued this person and that person, and now they're suing Alex.
I've seen comments that people have made about, oh, this is too far.
Oh, this is greedy.
And the thing about it is, yeah, you're going to ask because you're probably not going to get what you ask for also.
And yes, it is kind of weird and nebulous when you start asking people, okay, assign a dollar value to...
Pain and suffering, because again, those are abstract concepts and you're asking someone to put a concrete number on that.
And yeah, it does get very weird and fuzzy and can get very philosophical and even esoteric there, but that's what we have.
And so this idea that these families are just out there trying to get money is absolutely ridiculous, when really the story leading should be, this is what this man did to them.
This is the suffering that he caused and he knew he was causing it.
And he did all of this so he could sell dick pills.
And you're absolutely right as far as the direction things are going.
When you talk about how somebody needs to stand up to this bullying, for the past 20 years there's been nothing but positive reinforcement from Fox News and right-wing media in general in regards to just bully people.
Bully them.
That's what people want.
They want that aggressive kind of attack on people all the time.
And this may be one of the few times that any of us have seen possible serious consequences before.
I saw that one of the trusts that apparently paid his bankruptcy lawyer, I believe for his personal one, I have reason to believe that his dad has an interest in that.
I mean, ironically, one of the most damning things that was said at the trial, though, came from his dad, which I appreciate on a Shakespearean level, almost.
This man has gotten him out of trouble over and over and over again, and yet with one sentence...
Oh yes, when he said, I got up, I think I got up and cheered when he said in that deposition tape, we tried to, you know, see what Alex was saying on that day, we tried to emulate spikes.
I have done Hail Marys, though, that I've always worked.
One of my favorite ways to win is when a judge will say the equivalent of, you're being wild right now, Stringer.
But you got a point!
But yeah, I'm so thankful that I got to be, you know, even the small part that I got to...
I've really enjoyed being able to, you know, elevate these family stories and talk about them and, you know, their testimony, because that's something also I thought that was really important to do, is to talk about the testimony of these families, talk about what they went through, what the harm was done.
I think in that context, again, the story isn't that they're asking for money.
The story is, good God, like, this is the most evil, one of the most evil cases I've ever seen.
Truly.
It is.
Especially when you compare, you know, how these families have made positive, you know, have contributed good in the world.
When they have every reason to say fuck off to everybody.
Every reason.
And yet they still manage to...
You know, be positive and try to bring light and try to be a better force in the world for good.
And then when you compare that with, you know, the greed and awfulness and hatred of Alex, it's, you know, it's honestly astonishing.
Yeah, I feel like you so rarely get those kinds of situations, and I do feel like this case is going to set a precedent.
You know, I think Norm is right in that aspect, and that liars are going to be taken to account.
People who break the rules and refuse to participate, they're going to be held to account, and people are going to point to this case.
And, you know, I know that the facts of this case are really unique here, but I'm hoping that this isn't a one-off, and I'm hoping that, you know, this can build into something where we are taking these people who perpetuate this amount of harm into the world to account.
You know, you should not be able to lie about people in the most horrendous of ways and make money from it.
I feel like that's very simple, and yet everyone seems to think...
But when you say it like that, then I feel like people understand more what this is really about.
This is about someone taking the most personal aspect of someone's life, especially grieving and the death of a loved one and the death of a child.
Which is, you know, absolutely unimaginable to me.
And profiting from it.
And it's, I think that concept of itself is just so gross.
And I think, and, you know, I feel like maybe, I don't know if you and Dan felt in this situation, but sometimes being worried about the jury being red-pilled or going along with Alex's case.
There were plenty of times where, you know, when the jury has questions, every time the jury comes back with questions, I think the natural instinct to try and overanalyze why they would ask this particular question and see if that gives an insight into what they may be thinking.
And so there were a few questions in the Texas trial that made me think there were at least one or two people who I was not stoked about being on the jury.
Yeah, that happened to me too, and that's when I had to remember.
They might be trying, because, you know, they're also not allowed to talk to each other, so they may be trying to illustrate a point for other jurors, or to clarify for their own selves.
And I think the guy that was asking if Daria was a lizard person was just having fun.
Because we are so close and we do see these radicalized people in Alex's audience and even outside of Alex's audience, and the concern, of course, is, oh my gosh, everybody around me is completely radicalized, and then anybody else is just not paying attention, and that's a huge problem, and we need to fix it.
And I feel like this really restored a lot of my hope in a lot of ways, where...
People said, no, this is disgusting and wrong.
I don't have to know everything about Alex Jones to know that.
And almost more importantly, they don't know everything about Alex Jones.
Like, to me, part of the jury's verdict and the way that it made me restore my...
You know, similarly, I had restored faith in humanity, is that...
Without the constant pressure of Alex's media or Fox News or whomever coloring the way you think about things, in a neutral setting, every human being can come to the conclusion that Alex is an asshole.
Yeah, but I think that Judge Bellis really hit that nail on the head because they were.
Like, I saw that there were jurors that were engaged.
They were, you know, I could see where people were taking notes.
And, of course, you know, it's very funny that this happened in the Connecticut case, too, as well as the Texas case, where one juror is trying to take notes on something Alex is saying in a tape on the InfoWars broadcast, and they just give up because it's impossible to follow.
Really, you know, and I felt like a lot of people were worried that they wouldn't grasp the importance of this, that they wouldn't grasp the issues, or they'd say, ah, yeah, he did some bad stuff, but I mean, you know, he shouldn't be, you know, solely held responsible, or he shouldn't be that responsible for it.
I was really worried about that, but I think in both cases now we've seen where...
The jury has really, really thought about these issues, and they're not, you know, and I think also they don't like the argument that Renal and Norm have put forward, because also it treats them like they're stupid.
I've also never seen cases where you got to play to the jury that the defendant called you dumb.
When she said that to the most basic jury question, like, which I think was a question that was messing with her on the degree of, you know, are you a lizard person?
And they're like, do you think that, you know, this trial is staged?
And when she was like, yeah, to an extent, I was just like, oh, man.
She's gonna go unsung, I think, in the history books for how absolutely insane she was in that trial.
There were so many moments where she agreed to something that you looked at her dead in the eyes and just thought, if I were bleeding out, she would laugh.
My appearances where I host Pop Law on Opening Arguments, where I talk about, you know, pop culture and law, and I also talk about disinformation and debunk disinformation about cases and such, and hopefully I'll be having some more of my own ventures pretty soon, but you can also follow me on Twitter.
You can just find me, just look up Ace Associate Morgan Stringer, at Mo String, that's M-O-S-T-R-I-N-G.
I have to spell it because of my southern...
My very thick southern accent, which I'm sure you've noticed.
One of the questions that people ask us all the time after six years of this nonsense is, how do you feel like it's affected you as a person in the way you think about things?
And I was wondering the same for you, because when you immerse yourself in this kind of space the way that we have done, it does change you.
So I was wondering what kind of feelings of change do you have?
I would actually say not to be corny about it, but I would say it actually has, I feel like, made me a better lawyer and a better communicator with how I talk about the law with people, because that's something I've actually even discovered I have a real passion for, is telling people about what's going on in these types of cases and providing some sort of analysis with that.
I mean, I don't know necessarily what that means, but also it's changed me in the fact that...
I was, you know, very despondent about the state of the legal profession and, you know, thinking of, you know, it seems like all these, there's just so many grifters in the legal profession and it feels like the only way to get ahead is to be one of these despicable people.
And here I am refusing, but, you know, there's no...
I felt like there was, like, no advantage in this profession unless you were one of those types.
Honestly, I started to feel that way.
But I was, you know, trying to, you know, I was steadfast in that I wouldn't sink to those levels.
And I still am and hopefully always will be, God willing.
But I...
Yeah, I feel like I have gotten hope again in that there are good attorneys, that there are attorneys who care about the principles of this profession, and there are judges who care about what's fair and justice and doing the right thing and holding people to account.
And there are people who made up the juries, you know, as we talked about, people who say, no, this is wrong.
And also that we are now punishing attorneys who break the rules.
I feel like that has changed and made me a lot more hopeful about this profession.
That I'm actually seeing consequences now for the bad actions.
Whereas it felt like before, they seemed to be the ones taking advantage while everybody else was behind.
So I feel like my faith in the legal depression...
But I feel like my faith in the profession has been restored.
And the fact that people are interested in hearing about what the families are saying, and this isn't just about, oh, Alex comes in and it explodes on the stand, and then we all make memes and laugh, and then forget about how evil.
I mean, if the bankruptcy goes away, I won't, you know.
We'll see, but I hope I can get one of those hatchets as a gift.
That's all I ask for.
I do also want the Hellcat, but that might be a big ask.
Yeah, that is one of the things that we respect the most about you and the people that we've kind of surrounded ourselves with, is the need to put the families first, to put the harm first.
And we can all have our fun after that, but not to forget that the reason we're here is because of this.
It's to remember, okay, well, you know, yeah, he says funny stuff on the stand, and we can all make fun of him and mock him, of course, but, you know, that we don't lead off with that, right?
That we instead say...
Oh, this is the harm that he has done to, you know, society, to these families, to, you know, the people who know these families.
You know, it's, again, how trauma just kind of recycles itself and gets passed down and things.
You know, that's something I also think about is the degree of harm that really this has caused.
It's unimaginable.
So when you think about it that way, you know, it doesn't make the money seem as overwhelming and large.
I mean, you almost do get in that situation where you're like, man, is it, you know, is this even enough?
But, you know, time will tell with that, but we'll see where it goes.
Well, I mean, you think about the, is this enough?
And one of the powerful things that they kept bringing up was how many people were touched, you know?
How many people saw this information?
How many people were influenced by this information?
And you think, oh, 1.5 billion is a lot.
But if you just had all of those people...
Who were taken in, give a dollar, we'd be at three billion dollars or whatever.
It's like, relatively speaking, the harm he's caused is so huge that because we're so unused to money being that big, it's hard to wrap our minds around.
We'll see where that goes there, and I don't know if Norm's going to be handling the appeals or what, but I mean, I suspect he will be, but all that's left for there are those two versions.
And I really do think that the only way you could win or, you know, there's no way you can get out with a win, right?
As much as one of the moments from a Connecticut trial that cracked me up was...
I can't remember exactly what it was at the moment, but Judge Bellis and he were having a discussion about objections and such, and then, you know, Judge Bellis said, well, I'm assuming there will be an appeal, to which Norm said, what if we win?
To which Judge Bellis repeated herself and said, I'm assuming there's going to be an appeal.
You know, this is outside the presence of a jury and everything, but it just cracked me up.
Well, easiest way is to find me on the Hellsite Twitter, Ace Associate Morgan Stringer.
And the at is at mostring, M-O-S-T-R-I-N-G.
And you can also find me on the Opening Arguments podcast occasionally, talking about pop culture and law, and I'll hopefully have some new projects out pretty soon here.