A Texas bankruptcy judge ruled on Tuesday that a plan to sell the assets of Alex Jones’ company Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, can proceed. The profits from the conspiracy-powered media organization’s sale will be awarded to Jones’ creditors, most of whom are families who sued Jones after he repeatedly defamed them by claiming that the Sandy Hook mass shooting that killed their loved ones was a hoax. The judge’s approval means that Infowars’ slow wind-down will continue, after years of delays during bankruptcy proceedings. A separate fight still remains over whether Jones’ personal Twitter account can also be sold off, something he and his attorneys have opposed.
“Alex Jones will no longer own or control the company he built.”
Jones lost by default in a series of lawsuit brought by two sets of Sandy Hook families in Texas and Connecticut; both Free Speech Systems and Jones personally have since filed for bankruptcy. The total amount expected from the sale, while likely to be in the millions, won’t approach the $1.5 billion courts have ordered Jones and Infowars pay out to the families. Two parents who sued him in Texas, Lenny Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa—their son Noah was the youngest child to die at Sandy Hook—also have yet to have their case heard.
“FSS will now be sold at auction, meaning Alex Jones will no longer own or control the company he built,” Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Connecticut plaintiffs, said in a statement provided to NPR. “This brings the families closer to their goal of holding him accountable for the harm he has caused.”
The sale is scheduled to happen in stages beginning in November, and will include both the company’s intellectual and physical property. In a separate ruling earlier this year, Houston bankruptcy Judge Christopher M. Lopez ruled that some of Jones’ personal assets could also be sold off, although he is being allowed to keep his home in Austin. One remaining fight is whether FSS owes money to a company called PQPR holdings, which claims to sell Infowars the pills and supplements the company markets. PQPR is another Jones-controlled entity, and the families have long maintained that its sudden appearance in business filings not long after the families were told they could proceed with their defamation suit was part of a plan to “siphon off” assets that might otherwise be subject to court judgement.
The process has also revealed strain between the families who brought suit in Texas, Jones’ home state, and those who sued in Connecticut, where the killings occurred. As an attorney representing the U.S. bankruptcy trustee appointed to the case put it during the Tuesday hearing, the sale of FSS assets could kick off a “race to the courthouse,” as groups of families and lawyers tussle over whose settlements are paid out first.
The Connecticut plaintiffs co-counsel wrote in a filing earlier this month that the Texas families were “seeking immediate turnover of FSS’s assets for the Texas Families’ sole benefit.” He added that it suggested “a continued belief on the part of the Texas Families that they—and they alone—should be entitled to recover from FSS, while the Connecticut Families should receive nothing.”
In a plan previously proposed by the Texas side, Infowars would remain operational and Jones would pay them over the next decade. (As the New York Times notes, that plan would have required him to never mention the shooting on-air again, something he arguably doesn’t have the self-control to do.)
But attorneys for the Texas families now say they also support the trustee’s current plan. Avi Moshenberg, an attorney for the Texas families, wrote in a September 20 filing that his clients support the wind-down motion put forward by the trustee, and “agree that FSS’s assets should be sold.” Moshenberg added that “the Court can rest assured that the Texas Plaintiffs are striving to work out an agreement with the parties” over “how FSS sale proceeds should be distributed.”
For his part, Jones has made it clear he wants the company to be auctioned off, in hopes that “patriots,” as he puts it, will buy it more or less whole and let him continue broadcasting.
“The Democratic party running all this, the FBI, the CIA running this, didn’t want that,” Jones said of the proposed auction in a broadcast on Tuesday, shortly before the hearing. “They wanted me off the air…They want us shut down and closed and don’t even let ‘em sell the assets.” He tied the case to the upcoming election adding, “They’re getting ready to try to take Trump out, and don’t want us on the air during that fight.”
Jones also hinted, as he often does, that he has yet another plan up his sleeve. “They have our phones tapped and know something better is coming,” he declared. “They’re gonna have an issue on their hands.”
During the same show, Jones claimed to be “out of money,” and urged his audience to go to the The Alex Jones Store—an entity he insisted was separate from Free Speech Systems—and buy merchandise to support him. “We need the funds,” Jones wheedled. “These are great T-shirts. I need your aid.”
