The sale of Alex Jones' right-wing conspiracy site Infowars to The Onion could be held up in court after a judge on Thursday questioned the transparency of the auction process.
The satirical news site was sold in a bankruptcy auction with the help of the families of the Sandy Hook shooters, who owe Jones more than $1 billion in a defamation judgment.
But the judge in Jones' bankruptcy case said at an emergency hearing in Houston later that day that he had doubts about how the auction proceeded and scheduled an evidentiary hearing next week to determine whether the auction was fair. I ordered it to be held inside.
“We're all going to go to an evidentiary hearing and find out exactly what happened,” Judge Christopher Lopez said. “No one should be satisfied with the outcome of this auction.”
He did not immediately set a hearing date.
The only other bidder, First United American Companies, which operates ShopAlexJones.com, changed its bidding from a public process to a silent auction (where competitors' bids are not exposed to other potential buyers) at the last minute. complained that it had been changed.
The Onion's parent company, Global Tetrahedron, did not disclose the winning bid, but the trustee who ran the auction said the amount the Onion offered was lower than First United American's $3.5 million bid, but it was more than that. He said it was a good deal.
Christopher Murray, the trustee tasked with overseeing the liquidation of Jones' assets after he declared bankruptcy, has agreed to waive part of the sale process to pay Jones' other creditors. He said the offer on the house was not something he could claim. Although it has monetary value, it was the highest bid.
“We've never seen anything like this in other cases before. We did a lot of investigation and we never found it,” Murray said. According to Bloomberg.
“But I have always believed that my goal is to maximize recovery for unsecured creditors, and we have clearly seen better results under some bids than others.”
Jones posted a video rant on social media, claiming the auction was fake and “rigged” and that his company had been “hijacked.”
“This was an auction that never happened, the bids were low and inauthentic amounts were used,” he claimed.
The judge said he doesn't have an opinion on who should buy InfoWars, but his job is to make sure it's done fairly.
“Personally, I don't care who wins the auction,” Lopez said, according to Bloomberg. “I’m all about process and transparency.”
If the sale is approved, The Onion newspaper, which has a history of publishing baseless misinformation and conspiracies, including that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax designed to take guns away from Americans, would announced plans to shut down Infowars. The family won a defamation lawsuit against Jones, which resulted in him filing for bankruptcy.
Instead, The Onion, best known for its oft-repeated article after mass shootings with the title, “'There's no way to prevent this,' say only countries where this happens regularly.” , will publish satirical articles and research on gun violence prevention. Everytown for Gun Safety is a gun safety organization founded in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, in which 20 young children and six educators were massacred.
Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion, said: “When I bought this, I thought it would be a really funny joke, probably one of the best jokes I've ever told.'' Deaf,” he said.
“The (Sandy Hook) family decided to virtually join our bid and support our bid to get us across the finish line, because at the end of the day, he Who can allow this website to continue unabated and basically unpunished for what it has done to these families over the years, us or Alex Jones? Or to do the second thing, which is stupid and make a stupid website.”
For the families of Sandy Hook victims, crushing Jones' megaphone denouncing a pernicious conspiracy was enough to get them signed.
Robbie Parker, whose six-year-old daughter Emily was killed in the shooting, said in a statement: “The dissolution of Alex Jones' assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have been waiting for for many years.” . lawyer.
with post wire
