A court-appointed trustee in Alex Jones’ bankruptcy proceedings is drawing up plans to shut down Infowars and liquidate its assets to help pay off the $1.5 billion that Jones owes the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims.
Filing an emergency motion in a Texas bankruptcy court on Sunday, trustee Christopher Murray revealed that he has been planning for “an orderly wind-down” of Infowars parent company’s operations and a liquidation of its assets. He has asked a bankruptcy judge to extend a stay in the case to allow him to see that process through.
Jones’ lawyer did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
The emergency motion, if granted, would mean the end of Infowars, a platform that Jones has 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 owes to the families but dismissed a bankruptcy case for his media company Free Speech Systems, which runs Infowars.
That ruling meant that Jones could continue to broadcast on Infowars for the time being. Jones has warned his viewers for weeks that the bankruptcy proceedings could bring 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 — over how to collect the money that Jones owes them. None of the families have received any money from him to date; if and when they do, it is likely to be a fraction of the amount he has been 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 the families and to garnish its accounts.
“The specter of a pell-mell seizure of FSS’s assets, including its cash, threatens to throw the business into chaos, potentially stopping it in its tracks, to the detriment of the interests of the chapter 7 estate for which the Trustee is responsible,” Murray wrote, asking the bankruptcy judge to intervene “to prevent a value-destructive money grab and allow an orderly process to take its course.”
Christopher Mattei, a lawyer who represents the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut lawsuit against Jones, said in a statement that the request by the Texas plaintiffs would “undercut” a fair distribution of Jones’ assets to all the families. Mattei said his clients support the trustee’s emergency motion.
