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Texas judge rules that Alex Jones' Infowars will be put up for sale once again

Texas judge rules that Alex Jones' Infowars will be put up for sale once again

USA Today2 hours ago
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones faced another setback in court as a Texas district judge ruled that his Infowars platform could be put up for sale again. The decision follows a 2024 ruling to halt an earlier sale due to concerns about the auction process.
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble ruled on Wednesday, Aug. 13, that Infowars' parent company, Free Speech Systems, was to be placed in the hands of a court-appointed receiver and that the company's assets would be used to pay the $1.3 billion in legal judgments.
In 2022, the courts ruled that Jones defamed the families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, in which six adults and 20 children were killed. He made repeated false claims that the massacre was a 'hoax' staged as part of a government plot to confiscate guns from Americans.
Gamble's order paves the way for The Onion to try yet again to purchase Infowars and its assets.
In December 2024, the satirical news site initially won the court-ordered auction for Infowars, but a U.S. bankruptcy judge blocked the sale, stating that the bankruptcy auction did not result in the best possible bids.After the court's latest ruling, The Onion's CEO Ben Collins posted on the social media platform Bluesky on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 'We're working on it. That's all I can say for now.'
Reuters and USA TODAY's Jeanine Santucci contributed to this report.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
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Alex Jones' Infowars assets will be sold to pay over $1B in debts to Sandy Hook families: judge
Alex Jones' Infowars assets will be sold to pay over $1B in debts to Sandy Hook families: judge

New York Post

timean hour ago

  • New York Post

Alex Jones' Infowars assets will be sold to pay over $1B in debts to Sandy Hook families: judge

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones will have to sell his Infowars' assets to pay more than $1 billion he owes to the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, according to a Texas court ruling. A court-appointed receiver will be responsible for taking over and selling the assets of Infowars to pay off Jones' debts to Sandy Hook families, according to an order signed by Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin on Wednesday. The order has the potential to shut Jones out of his studio in the coming days — forcing the conspiracy theorist to fork over the company's property, recording equipment, and brand name, the filing indicated. 3 A court-appointed receiver will be responsible for taking over and selling the assets of Infowars to pay off Jones's debts to Sandy Hook families. AP His debts amount to a whopping $1,288,139,555, according to court documents. The Wednesday ruling appeared to restart an effort by The Onion to buy Infowars and its assets to turn the platform into a parody site. 'We're working on it,' Ben Collins, chief executive of The Onion, said in a social media post Wednesday. Last year, the satirical outlet won a bankruptcy auction for Infowars, backed by Sandy Hook families. But a federal bankruptcy judge halted the sale in December of last year, criticizing the bidding process as flawed. 3 On his daily show on Thursday, Jones blasted the court order as improper, claiming he already has another studio set up in the event Infowars is shut down. AP On his daily show on Thursday, Jones blasted the court order as improper, claiming he already has another studio set up in the event Infowars is shut down. 'People want to hear this show,' said Jones, who is based in Austin. 'I will continue on with the network. They can harass me forever. … And they won't get me off the air,' he said. Relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting sued Jones in Connecticut Superior Court in 2018 after he spread the baseless claim that the massacre was a fabricated pretext to take Americans' guns. He was found guilty in 2022 for defamation after his false claims that the 2012 massacre, which killed 26 people, including 20 children, was a hoax. 3 The order also appeared to restart an effort by The Onion to buy Infowars and its assets to turn the platform into a parody site. Getty Images Mentally ill killer Adam Lanza, 20, used a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle in his rampage, leading to widespread debate about gun control in the country. Lanza committed suicide after the massacre. Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit committed to ending gun violence that was founded after the Sandy Hook shooting, previously said it would advertise on a relaunched version of the site under The Onion if the sale of the platform went through. 'Today's order brings us a critically important step closer to achieving the goal that the Connecticut families have spent years fighting for: holding Alex Jones accountable for years of harm,' Christopher Mattei, one of the lawyers for the families, said in a statement to the New York Times. A contact for Jones' attorney was not immediately available for comment. With Post wires

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