A federal judge has ordered a company affiliated with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to disqualify satirical media outlet The Onion from its bid to acquire Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction on fraud and conspiracy charges. requested.
A company called First United American Companies, which is linked to the Jones website, which sells health supplements, was the only bidder at a recent auction, offering US$3.5 million. In papers filed in federal bankruptcy court in Houston, lawyers for the company asked a judge to declare the winning bidder instead of The Onion.
Attorney Walter Cicack argued that the bankruptcy trustee overseeing the auction improperly conspired with The Onion and the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut to name The Onion as the winning bidder. Cicack also claimed the trustee violated sales rules set by the judge and said the amount of cash the company offered was twice that of The Onion.
FILE – Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones speaks to the media after arriving in federal court for a hearing before a bankruptcy judge in Houston, Friday, June 14, 2024.
David J. Philip / Associated Press
The bankruptcy auction was held last week as part of the liquidation of Jones assets, including Infowars. Proceeds from the sale will go to Sandy Hook families and other creditors. Jones went bankrupt in 2022 after being ordered to pay about $1.5 billion in a defamation lawsuit filed by their families who claimed the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six educators was a hoax staged by actors to promote stronger gun laws. I applied.
Ben Collins, CEO of Global Tetrahedron, the Chicago-based parent company of The Onion, issued a statement through a spokesperson on Monday.
“I’m obviously disappointed, but not surprised, that he’s being accused of creating a conspiracy,” he said, referring to Jones.
Christopher Murray, the bankruptcy trustee appointed to oversee the sale, declined to comment Monday. Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook family, also declined to comment.
In a response filed with the court late Monday, Murray called the claims “baseless.” He said First United American’s motion to disqualify The Onion was “an inappropriate attempt by a disappointed bidder to influence a fair and open auction process.”
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Murray also wrote: “Following the failure of previous efforts to bully the trustee and his advisors into accepting lower bids, FUAC now alleges, without evidence, that there was collusion and malice in attempting to mislead the court and disqualify the sole competitor from the auction. .”
Murray filed separate court papers Monday asking a judge to approve the sale of Infowars to The Onion.
A further step toward clearing up the sale came last week when lawyers for X Corp., the group founded by Elon Musk when he acquired Twitter, filed a notice of appearance in Jones’ bankruptcy case.
The filing, first reported by Mother Jones, was dated November 14 and did not disclose the purpose of
Before Musk acquired Twitter, Jones and Infowars were banned from the platform for violating its user terms. But Musk reinstated Jones once Twitter (now X) was under his control.
Collings asked Jones over the weekend to use
“Apparently, when the current operators of InfoWars were back in business, they took advantage of this to falsely say that the auction had been flipped and make some truly bizarre claims,” he wrote.
A filing Monday by First United American Companies, which included a formal bid submitted by The Onion, said it offered $1.75 million for Infowars, along with certain incentives from Sandy Hook families who won their defamation lawsuit against Jones. . The family agreed to give up up to 100% of the proceeds from the sale of Infowars and give them to other Jones creditors.
The family’s offer would give other Jones creditors a total of $100,000 more than they would get if First United American Companies acquired Infowars, according to bid documents from The Onion.
Murray told a bankruptcy judge at a court hearing Thursday that his family’s incentives led him to make a better offer than the Jones-affiliated company’s offer.
“Creditors are much better off,” Murray told the judge, adding that one of his responsibilities is to maximize value for creditors.
Judge Christopher Lopez, who said he had questions about the sale process and concerns about transparency, ordered a hearing to find out exactly what happened at the auction and how the trustee chose The Onion. A hearing date has not been set.
Jones has criticized the sales process on his show and social media sites, calling it “rigged” and a “scam.”
Over the weekend, Collins posted a series of comments about the auction on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“To summarize: We won the bid and – you won’t believe it – the former InfoWars folks are not taking it well,” he wrote.
Collins said last week that The Onion plans to turn the Infowars website into a parody site to target conspiracy theorists and other social media figures and promote gun violence prevention efforts.
Cicack also said in a court filing Monday that the trustee improperly changed the auction process “from a live auction to a secret process.” Sealed bids are expected to be submitted on Nov. 8, followed by live bidding on Nov. 13, Cicack said.
But Murray decided to ask both bidders to submit another offer as their final and best offer, which he said they did. Murray then chose from among the final bids rather than conduct live bidding. He claimed Murray violated auction rules.
Lopez’s 20-page order on sales procedures issued in September made these live bidding rounds optional. And it gave Murray broad authority to carry out the sale. This includes the power to reject any bid, no matter how high, that is “contrary to the best interests” of Jones, his company and its creditors.
Cicack called the Sandy Hook families’ portion of The Onion’s bid “monopoly” money without merit.
“It is also the product of impermissible collusion with the Onion in an effort to ‘rig’ the auction with the goal of achieving a specific outcome desired by Connecticut families,” he wrote.
— Includes files from Global News
