Alex Jones, notorious conspiracy theorist, radio host and founder of right-wing site Infowars, was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated early Tuesday morning in Travis County, Texas, officials said.
Jones, 46, was booked at 12:37 a.m. on March 10 at the Travis County Jail in Austin on the DWI charge, which is a Class B misdemeanor offense, said Kristen Dark, public information officer for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. Under Texas law, a Class B misdemeanor is punishable by a fine of up to $2,000, a jail sentence of up to 180 days or a combination of both.
Jones’ bail was set at $3,000 and he was released on bond at 4:11 a.m., Dark said.
Jones and Infowars have been banned by multiple online platforms including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Spotify for violating policies on hate speech and harassment. He also hosts “The Alex Jones Show” on the Genesis Communications Network across the United States and online.
Among other things, Jones has claimed the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut — which killed 20 children and six adults — was a “giant hoax” perpetrated by “crisis actors”; said that NFL players protesting during the national anthem were “kneeling to white genocide”; accused the U.S. government of being behind the 9/11 attacks; attacked transgender and Muslim people; and called David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland, Fla., high-school shooting, a Nazi.
In December 2019, a judge in Texas ordered Jones and Infowars to pay $100,000 in court costs and legal fees to the father of one of the victims in the Sandy Hook massacre in a defamation suit brought against Jones. In a court deposition last year, Jones said it was a “form of psychosis” that caused him to believe events like the Sandy Hook massacre were staged.
According to a post Tuesday on Infowars, Jones “admitted to drinking a small amount of sake at a Japanese restaurant hours before with his wife” and claimed he was pulled over for driving 45 mph in a 40-mph zone. The Infowars article also claimed Jones was “cleared” of the DWI charge by “blowing less than a 0.08” — the breath-alcohol concentration (BAC) limit at which drivers in Texas may be charged with DWI — a claim the Travis County Sheriff’s Office could not corroborate. According to the Texas Dept. of Transportation, “a person is also intoxicated if impaired due to alcohol or other drugs regardless of BAC.”
