Conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones owes Sandy Hook families about $1.5 billion in damages for his lies that the 2012 school shooting never happened.
Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
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Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars show is at risk of being shut down within months after a federal bankruptcy judge ruled Tuesday that plans to sell the assets of Jones’ media company, Free Speech Systems, can move forward.
Net proceeds from any sale will go to the Sandy Hook families who were awarded $1.5 billion in damages by Jones for spreading lies that the 2012 school shooting never happened. Some of Jones’ supporters have harassed and threatened the families for years.
Lawyers for a group of families called Tuesday’s ruling a “significant step forward” toward a “fair and just” resolution for all families.
“FSS will now be auctioned off, meaning Alex Jones will no longer own or control the company he built,” attorney Chris Mattei said. “This brings the families closer to their goal of holding him accountable for the damage he caused.”
A court-appointed trustee for Jones’ personal bankruptcy case has already begun the process of auctioning off the components of Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company. Up for sale are everything from production equipment to domain names to Infowars’ online store for vitamins and supplements.
Bankruptcy trustee Christopher Murray told the court that several parties have already expressed interest in purchasing FSS assets, including Jones’ X.com account. The sale process begins with a sealed bid, with open bidding scheduled for Nov. 13 and Dec. 10 if necessary. The bidders are unknown and could be anyone from another vitamin and supplement seller to an entity trying to “capture and kill” the Infowars brand, or someone who wants to keep it alive.
The fact that there has been interest in Jones’ intellectual property assets, including his social media accounts, could mean the latter hypothesis is more likely.
“What makes me think is that the highest bidders are going to be entities that want to take that brand and make it work in some way,” says Chris Hampson, a bankruptcy law professor at the University of Florida. That would mean someone “in the right-wing media ecosystem who has a ready-made audience for them.”
Legally, Jones would be free to continue working for a new entity, but talks continue between Jones’ team and some Sandy Hook families seeking a deal that would prohibit Jones from continuing to speak about the school shooting.
A lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department, acting as a kind of bankruptcy watchdog, had tried to stop the sale, arguing that the bankruptcy trustee appointed in the Jones case staff Chapter 7 bankruptcy does not have the authority to sell FSS’s individual assets since Jones business East is no longer bankrupt and the company’s assets are “not the property of the Jones estate.” But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez rejected those arguments Tuesday, saying he would clarify his order so the sale could proceed as planned.
But as Hampson says, the court “saved some big fights for later.”
This includes the dispute over Jones’ “RealAlexJones” X.com account. Jones’ lawyers argue that the account is “the exclusive property of the natural person of Jones” and cannot be sold. To do so, they argue, would violate their client’s right to publicity, his privacy rights and amount to “involuntary servitude” under the 13th Amendment.
Meanwhile, the Sandy Hook families remain divided over how the proceeds should be distributed. But no matter how they divvy up the proceeds, court documents suggest the total amount will be less than $8 million, a small fraction of the $1.5 billion they are owed.
