A U.S. bankruptcy court trustee is planning to shut down conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars media platform and liquidate its assets to help pay the $1.5 billion in lawsuit judgments Jones owes for repeatedly calling the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax.
In an “emergency” motion filed Sunday in Houston, trustee Christopher Murray indicated publicly for the first time that he intends to “conduct an orderly wind-down” of the operations of Infowars' parent company and “liquidate its inventory.” Murray, who was appointed by a federal judge to oversee the assets in Jones’ personal bankruptcy case, did not give a timetable for the liquidation.
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.
Murray also asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez to put an immediate hold on the Sandy Hook families' 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 — with much of the proceeds going to the families.
