A bankruptcy judge approved Infowars to be liquidated and auctioned to help pay Sandy Hook families this November.
In June a bankruptcy trustee filed an emergency motion to shut down Infowars and Alex Jones’ parent company Free Speech Systems and liquidate its assets.
Earlier this year a federal judge ordered the liquidation of Alex Jones’ personal assets.
Judge Christopher Lopez approved Alex Jones’ request to convert a Chapter 11 business reorganization bankruptcy to a Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy.
Alex Jones said he will continue his show through social media accounts or a new website.
ABC News reported:
[Infowars] media platform and its assets will be sold off piece by piece in auctions this fall to help pay the more than $1 billion he owes relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, under an order expected to be approved by a federal judge.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said during a court hearing Tuesday that he will approve the auctions that start in November. But he said he first must change a previous order to make it clear that the trustee overseeing Jones’ personal bankruptcy case controls all the assets of Infowars parent company Free Speech Systems, which is owned 100% by Jones.
Despite the pending loss of his company, Jones vows to continue his talk shows through other means, possibly including a new website and his personal social media accounts. He also has suggested that Infowars’ assets could be bought by his supporters, allowing him to continue hosting his show as an employee under the Infowars brand in their home city of Austin, Texas.
The sell-off order Lopez intends to approve would put Infowars’ intellectual property up for auction on Nov. 13 including its trademarks, copyrighted material, social media accounts and websites. Jones’ personal social media sites, including his account on the social platform X, which has 2.8 million followers, would not be included.
However, the trustee overseeing Jones’ bankruptcy case, Christopher Murray, said Tuesday that he may soon seek court permission to also liquidate Jones’ personal social media accounts and his other intellectual property — which Jones’ attorneys have opposed. That issue could develop into another court fight in the bankruptcy case. Murray also is expected to sell many of Jones’ personal assets.
In December 2022 Alex Jones filed for personal bankruptcy protection in a Texas court after the Sandy Hook verdict.
A Connecticut judge previously ordered Alex Jones to pay an additional $473 million to Sandy Hook families, Reuters reported.
This is in addition to the $1 billion Alex Jones was ordered to pay for questioning the Sandy Hook shooting.
Sandy Hook families previously sought $2.75 trillion in damages – in addition to the $1 billion.
Alex Jones called the defamation suit an attack on his First Amendment rights.
Jones also said he apologized to the Sandy Hook families, but it wasn’t enough.
“I admitted I was wrong. I admitted it was a mistake. I admitted that I followed disinformation but not on purpose. I apologized to the families. And the jury understood that. What I did to those families was wrong. But I didn’t do it on purpose,” Alex Jones said in December 2022.
