A U.S. bankruptcy court trustee will shut down conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s media platform Infowars and liquidate its assets to pay a $1.5 billion legal judgment Jones owes for repeatedly calling the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax.
In an “emergency” motion filed in Houston on Sunday, Trustee Christopher Murray publicly stated for the first time his intention to “orderly wind down” Infowars’ parent company’s operations and “dispose of its inventory.”
Murray, who was appointed by a federal judge to manage Jones’ assets in his personal bankruptcy case, did not provide a timeline for the liquidation.
Jones has said on his web and radio shows that he expects Infowars to continue operating for a few more months before shutting down in bankruptcy.
But he vowed to continue the hype through other means, including social media, and said he was open to someone buying the company and letting him continue the show as an employee.
Murray also asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez to immediately halt efforts by Sandy Hook Elementary School families to collect huge debts owed to Jones, a move he said would thwart his plans to shut down the company’s parent company, Free Speech Systems, in Austin, Texas, and sell its assets with most of the proceeds going to the families.
On Friday, lawyers for the parents of one of the 20 children killed in the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting asked a state court in Texas to order Free Speech Systems (FSS) to turn over certain assets, including bank account deposits, to the family and seize the accounts. According to court records, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble approved the request, and Murray filed the emergency motion.
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was killed in the shooting, won $50 million in damages in Texas for lying about how Jones had lied about the shooting being a hoax perpetrated by crisis actors to promote greater gun control. In a separate lawsuit in Connecticut, Jones was ordered to pay more than $1.4 billion in damages to the families of the Sandy Hook shooters for defamation and emotional distress.
In a court filing Sunday, Murray said the families’ collection efforts “may result in disorderly seizure of FSS’s assets, including its cash, disrupting and possibly halting its business operations, which may in turn interfere with his ability to perform his duties in Mr. Jones’ personal bankruptcy case.”
“The trustee is seeking court intervention to prevent a value-destructive theft and ensure an orderly process,” Murray said.
Murray also asked the judge to clarify Jones’s title to his bank accounts. As part of Jones’ personal bankruptcy proceedings, ownership of FSS was transferred to Murray. Jones continues to broadcast daily in the meantime.
It was not immediately clear when a bankruptcy judge would consider Murray’s motion.
Bankruptcy attorneys for Jones, Heslin & Lewis did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Monday.
Christopher Mattei, the attorney representing the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut lawsuit, said the families support the trustee’s new motion. Mattei said the families are also disappointed with the motion Heslin and Lewis filed in Texas court on Friday, which he said “prevents” Jones’ assets from being distributed equitably to all family members.
“This is exactly the unfortunate situation that the Connecticut families wanted to avoid,” Mattei said.
The families in both cases have yet to receive anything from Jones, but it seems likely they will only receive a small fraction of what he owes them.
Jones has personal assets of about $9 million, according to his most recent financial filings in court. Free Speech Systems has about $6 million in cash and about $1.2 million worth of inventory, according to recent court testimony.
On June 14, Bankruptcy Judge Lopez approved the conversion of Jones’ personal bankruptcy case. From reorganization to liquidationLopez also withdrew from FSS’ bankruptcy restructuring proceedings after Jones and lawyers for the Sandy Hook Elementary School families were unable to agree on a final bankruptcy plan.
Under federal law, the family’s efforts to recover $1.5 billion through the bankruptcy case were automatically stayed. The dismissal of the FSS bankruptcy meant the family would have to move those efforts from bankruptcy court to state courts in Texas and Connecticut, where they won legal judgments.
Jones and Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy in 2022, the same year that families of many of the victims of the school shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six teachers won their lawsuits.
Family members said they were distressed by Jones’ conspiracy and the actions of his followers. I was harassed or threatened Some of Jones’ followers have spoken out face-to-face with grieving families to insist the shooting never happened and that the children never existed. One parent said someone had threatened to dig up her son’s grave.
Jones is appealing the ruling in state court and now says he believes the shooting actually happened but that free speech allows him to say it didn’t happen.
