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In an \u201cemergency\u201d motion filed Sunday in Houston, trustee Christopher Murray indicated publicly for the first time that he intends to \u201cconduct an orderly wind-down\u201d of the operations of Infowars\u2019 parent company and \u201cliquidate its inventory.\u201d Murray, who was appointed by a federal judge to oversee the assets in Jones\u2019 personal bankruptcy case, did not give a timetable for the liquidation.<\/p>\n
Jones has been saying on his web and radio shows that he expects Infowars to operate for a few more months before it is shut down because of the bankruptcy. But he has vowed to continue his bombastic broadcasts in some other fashion, possibly on social media. He also had talked about someone else buying the company and allowing him to continue his shows as an employee.<\/p>\n
Murray also asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez to put an immediate hold on the Sandy Hook families\u2019 efforts to collect the massive amount Jones owes them. Murray said those efforts would interfere with his plans to close the parent company, Free Speech Systems in Austin, Texas, and sell off its assets \u2014 with much of the proceeds going to the families.<\/p>\n
On Friday, lawyers for the parents of one of the 20 children killed in the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, asked a state judge in Texas to order Free Speech Systems, or FSS, to turn over to the families certain assets, including money in bank accounts, and garnish its accounts. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble approved the request, court records show, prompting Murray\u2019s emergency motion.<\/p>\n
The parents, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, was killed in the shooting, won\u00a0a $50 million verdict in Texas<\/a>\u00a0over Jones\u2019 lies about the shooting being a hoax staged by crisis actors with the goal of increasing gun control. In a separate Connecticut lawsuit, Jones was ordered to pay other Sandy Hook families\u00a0more than $1.4 billion<\/a>\u00a0for defamation and emotional distress.<\/p>\n Referring to the families\u2019 collection efforts, Murray said in the Sunday court filing that \u201cThe specter of a pell-mell seizure of FSS\u2019s assets, including its cash, threatens to throw the business into chaos, potentially stopping it in its tracks, to the detriment\u201d of his duties in Jones\u2019 personal bankruptcy case.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trustee seeks this Court\u2019s intervention to prevent a value-destructive money grab and allow an orderly process to take its course,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n Murray also asked the judge to clarify his authority over Jones\u2019 bank accounts. As part of Jones\u2019 personal bankruptcy case, his ownership rights of FSS were turned over to Murray. Jones has been continuing his daily broadcasts in the meantime.<\/p>\n It was not immediately clear when the bankruptcy judge would address Murray\u2019s motion.<\/p>\n Bankruptcy lawyers for Jones, Heslin and Lewis did not immediately return messages seeking comment Monday.<\/p>\n Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut lawsuit, said they supported the trustee\u2019s new motion. He also said the families were disappointed with the motion filed Friday in the Texas court by Heslin and Lewis, which he said would \u201cundercut\u201d an equitable distribution of Jones\u2019 assets to all the families.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is precisely the unfortunate situation that the Connecticut (lawsuit) families hoped to avoid,\u201d Mattei said.<\/p>\n The families in both lawsuits, who have not received anything from Jones yet, appear likely to get only a fraction of what Jones owes them.<\/p>\n Jones has about $9 million in personal assets, according to the most recent financial filings in court. Free Speech Systems has about $6 million in cash on hand and about $1.2 million worth of inventory, according to recent court testimony.<\/p>\n On June 14, Lopez, the bankruptcy judge, approved converting Jones\u2019 personal bankruptcy case\u00a0from a reorganization to a liquidation<\/a>, which Jones requested. Lopez also dismissed the reorganization bankruptcy case of FSS, after lawyers for Jones and the Sandy Hook families could not agree on a final bankruptcy plan.<\/p>\n The bankruptcy cases had put an automatic hold on the families\u2019 efforts to collect any of the $1.5 billion, under federal law. The dismissal of the FSS bankruptcy meant the families would have to shift those efforts from the bankruptcy court to the state courts in Texas and Connecticut where they won the legal judgments.<\/p>\n Jones and Free Speech Systems\u00a0filed for bankruptcy protection<\/a>\u00a0in 2022, the same year that relatives of many victims of the school shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators won their lawsuits.<\/p>\n The relatives said they were traumatized by Jones\u2019 hoax conspiracies and his followers\u2019 actions. They testified about being\u00a0harassed and threatened<\/a>\u00a0by Jones\u2019 believers, some of whom confronted the grieving families in person saying the shooting never happened and their children never existed. One parent said someone threatened to dig up his dead son\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n Jones is appealing the judgments in the state courts. He has said that he now believes the shooting did happen, but free speech rights allowed him to say it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n