After ‘Real Water’ fiasco, Scientology donor and former Nevada legislator files for bankruptcy
We’ve kept an eye on Scientologist attorney, legislator, and Real Water honcho Brent Jones for a long, long time.
Way back in the year 2000, our New Times Los Angeles colleague Ron Russell wrote a pretty amazing piece about how a man named Raul Lopez, after suffering a brain injury and receiving a large cash settlement, was fleeced by Scientology. Ron’s piece explained that Brent Jones was one of Raul’s attorneys, and had gotten him involved in an ostrich egg investment scheme.
In 2012, at the Voice, we started watching Brent more closely because we noticed the connection between Brent, Scientology, and “Real Water,” which was gaining popularity despite its nonsense claims. The Guardian ridiculed Real Water’s claims about extra “electrons,” and we remarked, “One look at Real Water’s website should give you an indication that this product is aimed at people with room temperature IQs.”
Then, in 2014, our old friend Nathan Baca alerted us that Jones, a Tea Partier, had managed to get himself elected to Nevada’s state legislature.
And four years later, after his single term as a lawmaker, Brent ran for Nevada lieutenant governor, and his wife Aimee ran for his old seat in the Assembly. Both were defeated.
Then, all hell broke loose. In March 2021, Real Water turned out to be poisoning people. According to the FDA, numerous consumers, including children, were being rushed to hospitals with liver failure after drinking the “alkalized” water. The government shut down Real Water, and lawsuits exploded in the Nevada courts.
We’ve had some help from correspondents who have watched those lawsuits slowly progressing, and we had noted that Real Water Inc. and its parent company, AffinityLifestyles.com, had filed for bankruptcy.
And now, we noticed that Brent and Aimee Jones themselves also filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last month, and their filing helps fill in a few details.
According to their submission, the couple moved several times in the couple of years before the Real Water scandal broke in 2021, from a large house in Boulder City, Nevada to Fountain Hills, Arizona, and then to Ojai, California.
Today they’re renting a modest house in Montgomery County, Texas, north of Houston.
They estimate that they have $29,785.26 in assets (which is mostly from the value of a 2017 GMC Denali SUV that they plan to surrender), and more than $4 million in debts.
Most of that debt is related to their former Real Water enterprise. But untold more is represented in ongoing litigation, that they are unable to put a dollar amount on yet.
They listed 68 individuals who are suing them, including five minors and at least one deceased woman, Kathleen Ryerson.
“Kathleen Ryerson drank upward of 64 ounces of Real Water a day, her sister said days after the product was pulled from stores,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote in 2021. “An avid Real Water drinker for years, 69-year-old Ryerson died Nov. 11 from aspirated pneumonia and liver failure.”
Brent and Aimee reported that they are both unemployed and are living on $4,200 a month coming from relatives. They say they have $170 cash on hand and $55.26 in a checking account.
That’s some turn of fortune for a couple that just a few years ago was selling Las Vegas tap water as a magical cure.
Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:
Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history
Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea
Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time
Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology
Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain
Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org
And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning…
It's usually very sad to hear of families in financial difficulty, but not in this instance. These are predatory con artists who caused devastating injury and even death through their con. All my sympathies lie with the victims - I don't have even a thimble of sympathy left over for these terrible people.
These con artists are merely extending the Legacy of Hustlin' Hub. From Flim Flam Flubbard's affirmations:
" You can tell all the romantic tales you wish. You will remember them, you do remember them. But you know which ones were lies. You are so logical you will tell nothing which cannot be believed. But you are gallant and dashing and need tell no lies at all. You have enough real experience to make anecdotes forever. "
And so on and so forth, ad nauseam. I agree with Andrea's comment: It's difficult to muster even a mini-poof-fart of compassion for these grifting, predatory cultists...