A U.S. bankruptcy judge on Tuesday blocked parody news outlet The Onion from buying Infowars, a website founded by right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who claimed that the bankruptcy auction was rife with collusion.
Judge Christopher Lopez rejected Jones’ claims, but ruled that the bankruptcy auction did not result in the highest possible bids, The Guardian reported.
The Onion was the highest bidder in an auction for Infowars on Nov. 14, offering $1.75 million in cash and other incentives. The publication had plans to oust Jones and turn the misinformation website into a parody, with “noticeably less hateful disinformation," it said.
First United American Companies, a company affiliated with a Jones website that sells nutritional supplements, had bid $3.5 million.
“This should have been opened back up, and it should have been opened back up for everybody,” Lopez said. “It’s clear the trustee left the potential for a lot of money on the table.”
In 2022, Jones declared bankruptcy and was forced to liquidate his assets to pay $1.5 billion in damages to families of the victims in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, a result of his spreading harmful lies and misinformation about the shooting. For years, he claimed that no children were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and that the whole incident was a hoax to take away guns.
Multiple courts have ruled that Jones defamed the families of the victims.
Sandy Hook is just one of the thousands of conspiracy theories Jones spread on Infowars, which he founded in 1999 under Free Speech Systems LLC. The lies range from claims that 9/11 was an inside job to the Boston Marathon bombings being staged by the FBI.
Lopez ruled that neither offer at the auction for Infowars was high enough for the site, given the exorbitant amount Jones owes. He ordered court-appointed trustee Christopher Murray to come up with an alternate solution.
"You got to scratch and claw and get everything you can for them," Lopez said.
The families of the Sandy Hook victims were disappointed the sale wasn’t approved, their attorney told The New York Times.
“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,” Chris Mattei told The Times.
