A court-appointed administrator in Alex Jones bankruptcy case is drawing up plans to close Information wars and liquidate his assets to help pay the $1.5 billion Jones owes the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Filing a emergency movement In a Texas bankruptcy court on Sunday, trustee Christopher Murray revealed that he is planning “an orderly liquidation” of Infowars’ parent company’s operations and a liquidation of its assets. He asked a bankruptcy judge to extend the stay on the case to allow him to watch the proceedings.
Jones’ attorney did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
The emergency motion, if granted, would mean the end of Infowars, a platform Jones used to spread lies about the shooting that killed 20 first-grade children and six adults in 2012. Earlier this month, a bankruptcy judge allowed Jones to liquidate his personal assets to pay the judgments he owed to the families, but rejected a bankruptcy filing by his media company, Free Speech Systems, which runs Infowars.
This decision meant that Jones could continue to stream on Infowars for the time being. Jones warned his viewers for weeks that the bankruptcy proceedings could put an end to his show.
The emergency motion was filed amid a disagreement between two groups of Sandy Hook parents — those who sued Jones in Connecticut and those who sued him Texas – about collecting the money Jones owes them. Neither family has received money from him so far; If and when they do, it is likely to be a fraction of the amount he was ordered to pay.
Murray said he filed his emergency motion after a Texas state court on Friday approved the Texas plaintiffs’ request that Free Speech Systems turn over certain assets to families and garnish their accounts.
“The specter of a disorderly seizure of FSS assets, including its cash, threatens to throw the business into chaos, potentially paralyzing it, to the detriment of the interests of the Chapter 7 estate for which the Administrator is responsible,” Murray wrote, asking to the bankruptcy judge to intervene “to prevent a value-destructive cash grab and allow an orderly process to take its course.”
Christopher Mattei, an attorney representing the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut lawsuit against Jones, said in a statement declaration that the Texas plaintiffs’ request would “prejudice” a fair distribution of Jones’ assets to all families. Mattei said his clients support the administrator’s emergency motion.
This article was originally published in MSNBC.com
