The File
During discovery in the Sandy Hook defamation trial, Alex Jones's legal team accidentally sent opposing counsel a trove of more than 22,000 text messages spanning 2019 and 2020. The messages show Jones directing a surveillance operation against his then-wife Erika Wulff Jones, using a former Blackwater contractor to track her location, while simultaneously pursuing an extramarital relationship of his own. In one exchange, after his wife suggested divorce, Jones texted "I am in hell."
The Documented Record
Sometime in 2019: Jones hired a private investigator to follow Erika Wulff Jones, and that August the investigator contacted police over concerns she may have been suicidal and intoxicated, leading to her arrest. [DOCUMENTED]
2019 to 2020: Text messages show Jones enlisted Tim Enlow, a former Austin police officer and Blackwater contractor on his security detail, to track Wulff Jones's location, including GPS monitoring of her vehicle. [DOCUMENTED]
During the same period, texts show Jones simultaneously arranging meetings with another, unnamed married woman while demanding constant updates on his wife's whereabouts. [DOCUMENTED]
When Wulff Jones raised the subject of divorce, Jones texted, "I am in hell," and separately told his father he was living in "a black hole." [DOCUMENTED]
Multiple former Infowars employees described Jones drinking heavily during work hours, with one estimating vodka was in his cup roughly nine times out of ten. [DOCUMENTED]
December 24, 2021: Wulff Jones was arrested on a domestic violence charge after allegedly striking Jones more than 20 times. [DOCUMENTED]
August 2022: Rolling Stone first reported on the surveillance "spy ring" based on sourced accounts of the same underlying texts. [DOCUMENTED]
February 1, 2023: Following public release of the full text archive, detailed reporting on the surveillance, the affair, and the workplace drinking pattern was published. [DOCUMENTED]
What the Record Does Not Establish
The record does not establish the full extent of any surveillance conducted against Jones's first wife, Kelly Jones, beyond the sourced accounts describing a similarly structured monitoring effort during their custody dispute. It does not establish criminal liability for the surveillance described, since these disclosures arose from a civil defamation case rather than a separate criminal proceeding. The strongest rival explanation offered by Jones's own defense is that ordinary marital conflict during a difficult period was disclosed out of context after an inadvertent legal filing, though the volume and specificity of the tracking arrangement documented goes beyond ordinary marital suspicion.
Sources
- 'Stay Away From My Wife Tuff Guy': What's Revealed in Alex Jones' Leaked Text Messages Is Weird Even for Him, Mediaite, 2023
- Alex Jones Spied on His Wife and Ex-Wife, Texts Reveal, Rolling Stone, 2022
Connected Files
AJONES-006 documents the departure of two Infowars figures in the same general period this trial exposure affected the platform's staffing.