Alex Jones protests in Dallas on February 28, 2014. On Sunday, a bankruptcy trustee disclosed plans to shut down Jones' Infowars to pay some of the nearly $1.5 billion he owes Sandy Hook school shooting victims' families following a defamation lawsuit.
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June 24 (UPI) -- Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars media empire is coming to an end.
On Sunday, a bankruptcy court-appointed trustee said the company will be shut down and sold off, according to an emergency court filing. A timetable was not listed.
Trustee Christopher Murray wrote Sunday that since being appointed, he "began planning to wind-up operations and liquidate its inventory." Jones' media company is Free Speech Systems in Austin, Texas.
Murray wrote he "seeks this Court's intervention to prevent a value-destructive money grab and allow an orderly process to take its course."
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June 24 (UPI) -- Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars media empire is coming to an end.
On Sunday, a bankruptcy court-appointed trustee said the company will be shut down and sold off, according to an emergency court filing. A timetable was not listed.
Trustee Christopher Murray wrote Sunday that since being appointed, he "began planning to wind-up operations and liquidate its inventory." Jones' media company is Free Speech Systems in Austin, Texas.
Murray wrote he "seeks this Court's intervention to prevent a value-destructive money grab and allow an orderly process to take its course."
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The far-right outlet had been accused of spreading dangerous misinformation, prompting a defamation suit filed by the families of victims of the mass shooting of the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn. In 2012, a gunman shot and killed 26 people at the school, including 20 children and six adult staff members.
Jones, 50, had said the school shooting was a so-called false flag attack and that the victims were actors. He was sued by family members and eventually found liable in separate lawsuits in Texas and Connecticut for spreading false stories on his radio and online show. He admitted in court his claims were not true. The families were awarded $1.44 billion.
One of the Sandy Hook victim's parents filed a motion in a Texas District Court to be granted custody of all of Free Speech Systems' assets, including Infowars. Some families say this would have delayed the process.
Christopher Mattei, an attorney for Sandy Hook families from Connecticut in favor of liquidating the company, said "this is precisely the unfortunate situation that the Connecticut families hoped to avoid when we argued that the Free Speech Systems/InfoWars case should have remained with the bankruptcy court rather than being dismissed."
In December 2022, Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.
A bankruptcy judge in Texas earlier this month gave permission to Jones to start liquidating personal assets to pay off what he owed.
Lawyers told bankruptcy judge Christopher Lopez those personal assets include Jones' $2.8 million Texas ranch. Some personal assets, including a home in Austin, are exempted.
He then was allowed to move from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 liquidation of his assets.
Jones last year told the court he had about $9 million in assets. At the time, a judge ruled he could not avoid paying the legal judgments by declaring bankruptcy.
Jones has acknowledged Infowars would likely only continue broadcasting for a few more months.
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