(Headline USA) A federal judge in Texas rejected the auction sale of Alex Jones’s Infowars to The Onion, criticizing the bidding for the popular right-wing platform as flawed.
Infowars was put up for sale as part of a bankruptcy case following a nearly $1.5 billion fine that Jones was ordered to pay for calling one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history a hoax.
The left-wing satire site had planned to kick Jones out and relaunch Infowars in January as a parody. Families of the Sandy Hook victims had backed The Onion’s bid.
Following a two-day hearing in Houston, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said he would not approve the sale, citing concerns about transparency in the auction.
The Onion offered $1.75 million in cash and other incentives for Infowars’s assets in the auction. First United American Companies, which runs a website in Jones’s name that sells nutritional supplements, bid $3.5 million.
Although The Onion’s cash offer was lower than that of First United American, it also included a pledge by many of the Sandy Hook families to forgo $750,000 of the auction proceeds due to them and give it to other creditors, providing the other creditors more money than they would receive under First United American’s bid.
Lopez’s decision cleared the way for Jones to keep—at least for now—Infowars, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
“We are deeply disappointed in today’s decision, but The Onion will continue to seek a resolution that helps the Sandy Hook families receive a positive outcome for the horror they endured,” Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, posted on social media late Tuesday.
Lopez said he did not want another auction and left it up to the trustee who oversaw the auction to determine the next steps.
The bids were a fraction of the money that Jones has been ordered to pay in defamation lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas filed by relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. Lopez said the auction outcome “left a lot of money on the table” for families.
“You got to scratch and claw and get everything you can for them,” Lopez said.
Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families who sued Jones in Connecticut, said they were disappointed in the judge’s ruling.
“These families, who have already persevered through countless delays and roadblocks, remain resilient and determined as ever to hold Alex Jones and his corrupt businesses accountable for the harm he has caused,” Mattei said in a statement. “This decision doesn’t change the fact that, soon, Alex Jones will begin to pay his debt to these families and he will continue doing so for as long as it takes.”
Jones, who did not attend the proceedings, went back on his program late Tuesday to celebrate the judge’s ruling, calling the auction “ridiculous” and “fraudulent.”
Trustee Christopher Murray had defended The Onion’s bid in court this week, testifying that he did not favor either bidder over the other and was not biased.
He also revealed that First United American submitted a revised bid in recent days, but he said he could not accept it because the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut lawsuit objected.
The Onion valued its bid, with the Sandy Hook families’ offer, at $7 million because that amount was equal to a purchase price that would provide the same amount of money to the other creditors.
In a court filing last month, Murray’s lawyers called First United American’s request to disqualify The Onion’s bid a “disappointed bidder’s improper attempt to influence an otherwise fair and open election process.”
Jones’s attorney, Ben Broocks, noted that the Sandy Hook lawsuit judgments could be overturned in pending appeals and got Murray to acknowledge that the Sandy Hook families’ offer in The Onion bid could fall apart if that happens.
That’s because the percentage of the auction proceeds they would be entitled to could drop sharply and they wouldn’t get the $750,000 from the sale to give to other creditors.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
