A federal bankruptcy court trustee appointed to oversee the liquidation of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ estate is asking a judge to temporarily block families and other creditors from seizing assets tied to his media company, as he prepares “a process of orderly liquidation” and sale. .
The trustee, Christopher Murray, “requests the Court’s intervention to prevent a value-destroying cash grab and allow an orderly process to take its course,” according to his emergency filing filed Sunday in the U.S. District Bankruptcy Court South Texas.
The move comes after families who won a Texas defamation lawsuit against Jones in 2022 asked a state district court judge to force Free Speech Systems, which operates the Infowars platform, to return “all ‘money’, including ‘money held in any bank accounts’. or be controlled by any other third party under the direction of the media company.
But Murray said in his request that the “specter of a haphazard seizure of FSS’s assets, including its cash, threatens to plunge the company into chaos, potentially stopping it in its tracks, to the detriment of interests of the inheritance of chapter 7”. for which the trustee is responsible.
The trustee’s challenge is just the latest in the legal saga involving Jones, who broadcasts in the Austin area. He was sued in Texas and Connecticut by families who claimed he defamed them and inflicted emotional distress by repeatedly suggesting on his show that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012 was a hoax. A gunman killed 20 first graders and six adults at a school in Newtown, Connecticut.
The families were awarded a total of $1.5 billion in their lawsuits, but they were unable to recover anything from Jones, who claimed he could not afford such a large sum and filed for bankruptcy following the verdicts.
At a court hearing this month, federal Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez agreed to allow Jones to convert his bankruptcy filing into liquidating his personal assets to help pay the settlements.
But, in a ruling that Jones favored, the judge threw out another bankruptcy case involving Free Speech Systems. This allowed Jones to continue broadcasting even though the future of his show on Infowars remains uncertain and he had been suggesting for weeks that it might end.
At his 2022 Texas defamation trial, Jones generally accused the “corporate media” of misrepresenting and misrepresenting him, but did not specify how.
Jones’ attorney, Vickie Driver, said at this month’s bankruptcy hearing that money could be paid to the trustee in the form of the sale of Jones’ Texas ranch, a value of $2.8 million.
Court records indicate Jones has about $9 million in personal assets, while Free Speech Systems holds about $6 million in cash and more than $1 million in inventory.
The driver did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
An attorney for the families involved in the suit against Jones in Connecticut had said they supported the liquidation of Free Speech Systems because they feared it would lead to individual families fighting over the company’s assets in courts in the state.
“This is precisely the unfortunate situation that Connecticut families hoped to avoid when we argued that the Free Speech Systems/InfoWars case should have remained in bankruptcy court rather than being dismissed,” said attorney Christopher Mattei in a press release. “Connecticut families are disappointed by this attempt to undermine the orderly and long-awaited shutdown of Alex Jones’ InfoWars platform.”
Murray wants the court to place a 90-day pause on any collection action creditors bring against Free Speech Systems. We do not know when the judge will be able to rule.
News Source : www.nbcnews.com
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