Alex Jones' Infowars files for bankruptcy protection

Companies owned by controversial US radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones have filed for bankruptcy in the US state of Texas.

Jones is facing substantial legal payouts after he was found liable for damages in cases brought against him by the parents of Sandy Hook victims.

For years, Jones claimed the mass shooting in 2012, in which a gunman shot and killed 20 children and six educators at the Sandy Hook school in Connecticut, was a hoax.

His far-right website Infowars and two other companies on Sunday filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.

It would allow the companies to continue operating and put civil litigation on hold while the business reorganizes its finances.

Jones liable for damages

"Alex Jones is just delaying the inevitable: a public trial in which he will be held accountable for his profit-driven campaign of lies against the Sandy Hook families who have brought this lawsuit," Christopher Mattei, who represents the families in the Connecticut trial, said.

Jones had offered to pay $120,000 (€111,000) to each of the 13 plaintiffs to settle their defamation lawsuit. But Sandy Hook families rejected Jones' offer to settle in late March and reopened the case.

It's not the only legal claim he is facing in relation to his conspiracy theories.

Infowars listed its estimated assets of $50,000 or less and estimated liabilities of $1 million to $10 million.

Creditors listed in the bankruptcy filing include relatives of some of the 20 children and six educators killed.

Sandy Hook shooting

On December 14, 2012, a 20-year old shooter entered the Sandy Hook elementary School armed with a Remington assault rifle, licensed to his mother, whom he had already shot dead at their home in Newtown.

After killing 20 children and six educators, he shot himself dead with a handgun.

The perpetrator had been found to have severe mental health disorders and had been obsessed with previous mass shootings, including the Columbine High School shooting in 1999.

It remains one of the worst school shootings in US history.

Jones argued for years the mass shooting was a hoax to push gun control, staged by actors and the mainstream media.

However, courts in Connecticut and Texas found him liable after plaintiffs said they had been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones' followers because of the hoax conspiracy that Jones promoted.

Jones has since conceded the shooting was a real event, but continued to claim "anomalies" in the account.

lo/dj (AP, Reuters)