A lawyer for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' media company says a bank recently shut down the company's accounts, citing unauthorized transactions.
A bank recently shut down the accounts of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ media company, citing unauthorized transactions — a move that caused panic at the business when its balances suddenly dropped from more than $2 million to zero, according to a lawyer for the company.
The action last week by Axos Bank also exposed worry and doubt at the company, Free Speech Systems, about being able to find another bank to handle its money.
Jones, a conservative provocateur whose Infowars program promotes fake theories about global conspiracies, UFOs and mind control, is seeking bankruptcy protection as he and his company owe $1.5 billion to relatives of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.
He the one that used his platform telling his followers that the Sandy Hook elementary Massacre was a deep state hoax and that the kids and parents were and are actors.
He literally as spent years building up this conspiracy to the point that the parents of those poor dead children have been harassed for over a decade by crazys. I believe I heard that even one of the parents killed themselves over it.
He also guy said government was making the frogs gay.
Anyway he was sued and they got a billion dollar settlement against him.
He spent years spreading lies on his show that the victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting weren't real and were part of some sort of conspiracy. He lost a civil case brought by the families of the murdered kids who suffered a ton of harassment by his fans. They were awarded a lot of money that he has so far weasled out of paying.
Yes he is an asshole. Yes he deserves to lose all his money. Yes he should/has to pay the victims of sand hook.
My question is what happens to the money in the account? Can the bank just say we are not willing to do business with you anymore and keep it?
If this was me or you, can a bank just deny you access to the money in your account?
I would think... And I am no expert... They could say "we don't want your business anymore, take the money out of your accounts within 30 days or it's forfiet" or something. But to think the bank can just close the account and keep the money seems really bad in my eyes.
In this case, the bank is just saying, "You're no longer our customer," and sending him a cashier's check for the balance / value of his accounts.
In other cases, where the authorities have seized the accounts, the assets are frozen. The bank will turn it over to the authorities (federal, state, whatever) where the monies will generally be kept in an interest-bearing account that keeps track with inflation or similar but otherwise remain inaccessible to the original owner until the legal matters are resolved.
The only time, setting aside simple banking errors, the Bank would keep it is if the Bank is owed money anyway. LIke say, Jones had a huge set of outstanding loans he'd refused to pay. The Bank would simply take funds from the deposit acocunts and use them to pay down the loan(s).
Still insane that one of the largest civil suits in history is over Alex Jones, and not the many times people have died because of gross negligence, or many other terrible things. Alex Jones is not a good guy, but, 1.5 billion???