US judge weighs fate of the Onion's buyout of Infowars [View all]
Source: Reuters
December 9, 2024 6:25 AM EST Updated an hour ago
Dec 9 (Reuters) - Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is set to urge a U.S. bankruptcy judge to block the sale of his Infowars website to the Onion news parody site at a Monday court hearing in Houston. The Onion was named the winning bidder for Infowars in a November bankruptcy auction, but Jones and a company affiliated with his dietary supplements sales have argued that the sale process was plagued by fraud and collusion.
Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022 and was forced to liquidate his assets to pay $1.4 billion in legal judgments to the families of 20 students and six staff members who were fatally shot in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Courts in Connecticut and Texas have ruled that Jones defamed the families by making repeated false claims that the mass shooting was staged as part of a government plot to take guns away from Americans.
The Onion has said it plans to re-launch Infowars in 2025 as a parody site filled with "noticeably less hateful disinformation" than before.
The sale must be approved in court before it is final. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez, who is overseeing Jones' bankruptcy, at a previous court hearing voiced concerns about the auction's transparency. The judge has asked the parties for evidence that he will consider at Monday's meeting.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-weighs-fate-onions-buyout-infowars-2024-12-09/
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