A federal judge in the United States has rejected satirical website The Onion’s purchase of right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars, ruling that a bankruptcy auction did not result in the best possible bids.
In a decision late on Tuesday, US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez rejected Jones’s claims that the auction was plagued by “collusion”.
But Lopez said the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee who ran the auction made “a good-faith error” by quickly asking for final offers for Infowars instead of encouraging more back-and-forth bidding between The Onion and a company affiliated with Jones, which was the runner-up.
“This should have been opened back up, and it should have been opened back up for everybody,” the judge said at the end of a two-day hearing in Houston, Texas.
“It’s clear the trustee left the potential for a lot of money on the table.”
Lopez said he did not want another auction and left it up to the trustee who oversaw the auction to determine the next steps.
Alex Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022 after being ordered to pay more than $1.3bn to the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims [File: Briana Sanchez/Pool via Reuters]
The Onion was named the winning bidder for Infowars in a November auction.
But Jones and First American United Companies, which is affiliated with him, had argued the sale process was tainted because The Onion received too much credit for having the support of families that won large court verdicts against Jones.
Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022 and was forced to liquidate his assets to pay more than $1.3bn in legal judgements to the families of 20 students and six staff members who were fatally shot in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Jones repeatedly called the shooting a hoax staged by actors and aimed at increasing gun control. Parents and children of many of the victims testified in court that they were traumatised by Jones’s conspiracies and threats from his followers.
Jones has since acknowledged that the Connecticut school shooting happened.
In last month’s auction, The Onion offered $1.75m in cash and other incentives for Infowars assets. First United American Companies, which runs a website in Jones’s name that sells nutritional supplements, bid $3.5m.
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 some repayment from the Infowars sale so that other creditors could receive more money.
That concession caused a bankruptcy trustee to value The Onion’s bid at $7m overall.
Trustee Christopher Murray, who oversaw the auction, defended The Onion’s bid during the court hearings in Houston this week, testifying that he did not favour either bidder over the other and was not biased.
Jones, Sandy Hook families react
The Onion CEO Ben Collins said the company was disappointed in Lopez’s decision, but remains interested in purchasing Infowars and making a “better, funnier internet”.
The Onion had planned to re-launch Infowars in 2025 as a parody site filled with “noticeably less hateful disinformation” than before.
Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families who sued Jones in Connecticut, said they also 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.”
For his part, Jones, who did not attend the court proceedings, quickly went back on the air to applaud the judge’s decision.
“We can celebrate the judge doing the right thing with the most ridiculous, fraudulent auction known in human history,” he said.
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