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A US bankruptcy judge on Tuesday blocked parodic news site The Onion from buying conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ website Infowars, ruling that a bankruptcy auction did not yield the best possible deals.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez rejected Jones’ claims that the auction was riddled with “collusion” at the end of a two-day hearing in Houston.
But he said the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee leading the auction made a “good faith mistake” by quickly asking for final bids for Infowars instead of encouraging more back-and-forth bidding between the Onion and a Jones supplement affiliate company. business sale, which was ranked second.
“This should have been reopened and it should have been opened for everyone,” Lopez said. “It’s clear that the trustee left the potential for a lot of money on the table.”
Lopez said neither of Infowars’ offers was enough money given the extent of Jones’ debts, and told the trustee to work to resolve some of the disputes among creditors before making another attempt to sell Infowars.
The Onion was named Infowars’ winning bidder in a November auction, but Jones and Jones-affiliated First American United Companies had argued that the sale process was tainted because the Onion received too much credit for having the support from the families who won. large court verdicts against Jones.
Jones filed for bankruptcy in 2022 and was forced to liquidate his assets to pay more than $1.3 billion in legal judgments to the families of 20 students and six staff members who were shot in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
A claimed mass shooting took place
Courts in Connecticut and Texas have ruled that Jones defamed the families by making repeated false claims that the mass shooting was part of a government plot to take guns away from Americans.
Jones’ attorney, Ben Broocks, told Lopez at a hearing Monday that the Onion contributed only half as much cash as First American United Companies’ $3.5 million offer, but increased its offer with “smoke and mirrors” calculations.
The Sandy Hook families in Connecticut, who are Jones’ largest creditors, increased the Onion’s offer by agreeing to forgo some reimbursement from the sale of Infowars so that other creditors could receive more money. That concession caused a bankruptcy trustee to value Onion’s offer at $7 million in total.
Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families in Connecticut, said the sentence was disappointing but did not change the fact that Jones owes his clients large sums of money.
“The families, who have already persevered through countless delays and roadblocks, remain as resilient and determined as ever to hold Alex Jones and his corrupt companies accountable for the harm he has caused,” Mattei said.
Jones celebrated the verdict on Infowars.
LOOK | The Onion planned to relaunch the site as a parody:
Satirical news outlet The Onion has acquired conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ website Infowars in a bankruptcy auction. The bid was supported by the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that Jones called a hoax.
Onion CEO Ben Collins said the company was deeply disappointed by Lopez’s decision, but remains interested in buying Infowars and making a “better, more fun Internet.”
The Onion had planned to relaunch Infowars in 2025 as a parody site full of “notably less hateful disinformation” than before.
Christopher Murray, a court-appointed trustee in charge of selling Jones’ assets, said Tuesday the auction was fair, and First American United Companies only complained about the process after learning its bid was not chosen.
