In an explosive court document, Alex Jones’ ex-wife Kelly Jones claims that his parents are controlling both him and InfoWars.
Kelly levels these and other allegations in a lengthy petition to enforce the ex-couple’s custody agreement and grant her custody of the two youngest of their three children. She alleges that he left their daughters, ages 11 and 15, with his parents without telling her while he traveled abroad in violation of their agreement.
She also says that both he and his parents have failed to provide one daughter with proper medical care and have brainwashed both.
She has previously alleged Alex is brainwashing their children. This appears to be the first time she has accused his parents of the same.
Kelly’s claim, which she filed last month acting as her own attorney, was ultimately denied.
In the petition, Kelly alleges that Jones’ public persona was essentially created by his parents, David and Carol Jones, whom she calls his “superiors/control persons.”
She also objects to the case being assigned to two judges “in light of pending motions to recuse concern those judges in related cases” and references a “mysteriously altered or incomplete transcript from a hearing” before one of the judges.
It is not clear if there is any truth to her claim about the altered documents. She says that the court improperly failed to maintain an audio recording of a proceeding and that the transcript is inaccurate. It does not say how.
As of press time, neither Alex Jones nor his attorney had responded to request for comment. Through his attorneys, Alex told the Daily Mail that he denies Kelly’s claims that he has emotionally abused their children. The Daily Dot was unable to obtain contact information for his parents.
Alex Jones came to fame as the host of InfoWars, where he espoused conspiracy theories like the false accusation that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, and that autism is caused by vaccines. He was sued for the Sandy Hook claims; in December, a judge ordered him to pay $100,000 to a parent of one of the victims.
Alex got into the infotainment business early. InfoWars’ website states that he launched an access television show in the 1990s when he was 20. A radio show soon followed. Over time, Alex built himself into a conspiracy theory powerhouse. His website brags that in 2011 Rolling Stone called him “a giant in America’s conspiracy subculture.” The article also referred to him as “the most paranoid man in America.”
His peddling of unfounded, violent, and racist conspiracy theories ultimately got him kicked off all major social media platforms. Last year, the Daily Dot reported that he had quietly returned to Facebook under a new brand, which was subsequently banned.
In spite of his troubles, over the years, Alex has attracted a loyal following that in turn has made him very rich. The New York Times reports that Jones testified in a court proceeding that as of 2014, InfoWars and its affiliated businesses were raking in $20 million in revenue per year—most of it from the sale of products he hawks on the show.
It’s always been assumed that Alex independently came about his penchant for using conspiracy theories to create a brand for himself. But his ex-wife—from whom he had a messy divorce in 2015 followed by an even messier child custody dispute that drags out to present-day—-asserts that Jones didn’t come to this way of thinking on his own, his parents taught him these beliefs.
Kelly’s claims imply that everything Alex does regarding his children and his business is done at the behest of, and with cooperation from, his parents, whom she calls, variously, his “agents,” “legal designants,” and “superiors/controllers.” Rather than their father, as most would expect, she says that they have been “tragically indoctrinated” to their grandparents’ “paranoid, unfounded, and disturbing cult beliefs.”
She also claims that Alex’s parents are the real force behind the effort to take control of the children from her. She says that they “even more actively and directly than [Alex] seek to wrest possession and custody away from [her].”
Alex’s parents are rarely referenced in media coverage of him. He told Rolling Stone that they did the opposite of indoctrination. “My parents were careful not to give me political views almost as an experiment to see what I’d turn into,” he said.
According to Kelly, the opposite is true. She claims his parents’ control extends to the business, writing in the petition that his father is the “de facto manager” of his business complex, which is centered on InfoWars and Free Speech Systems.
Last year, CNN reported that David Jones was the human resources manager at Free Speech Systems after he was deposed in the Sandy Hook case. In the deposition, the elder Jones displayed detailed, long-term knowledge of the businesses’ inner workings.
“One of the strange things that occurred is when we were de-platformed everybody thought we would go away but many of those core and loyal customers were customers of ours before they even knew what the internet was, basically,” Alex’s father reportedly said. “So they either use telephone numbers or knew what our email address was or whatever so they could do it.”
The New York Times reports that Alex recruited his father in 2013, at which time his business “was in disarray.” After leaving his dental practice and starting work for his son, “Dr. Jones set about evaluating the business, getting the corporate entities sorted out, and creating opportunities to expand the supplement business.”
Alex is a vocal opponent of vaccines. He’s claimed, falsely, that the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine causes paralysis and seizures, and that vaccines cause autism.
“David and Carol Jones share Alex Jones’ paranoia and disdain for traditional, prescribed treatment,” Kelly Jones writes.
She further alleges that Alex and his parents are trying to turn the children into the next generation of conspiracy theorists and that they treat the kids like “living chattels/personal servants in training to advance ‘the family business’ of fraudulent conspiracy theories designed to promote fake news and disinformation nationwide.”
“All the children are tragically indoctrinated to Alex’s parents’ paranoid, unfounded, and disturbing cult beliefs…,” Kelly writes. In the petition, Kelly says one of their daughters has recently expressed a newfound desire “to grow up to be ‘conspiracy theorists’ like their dad—a decidedly new, but not necessarily promising, professional trajectory.”
Their son, Rex Jones first appeared on InfoWars in 2018 when he was 15. Kelly has accused Alex of “brainwashing” and exploiting him, Salon reports.
The catalyst for last month’s petition, Kelly claims, is Alex leaving their children with his parents while he traveled abroad. “[He] left (without proper notice at all) on Friday or Saturday for the Cayman Islands, one week after I filed involuntary bankruptcy against him on Friday, January 24, 2020,” she writes.
In an amended petition, she says that he returned from the Cayman Islands after she filed the claim.
The case was heard last month in the same jurisdiction where earlier this week Jones was charged with driving while intoxicated following his current wife calling police to report a domestic disturbance at his home. Jones is pleading not guilty.
Kelly has accused Alex of abuse on multiple occasions.
Kelly has since filed a new petition for primary custody of their children.
The judge has ordered Alex to submit to drug and alcohol testing in the custody case.
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