business affiliated with Alex Jones seeks to disqualify The Onion’s auction bid on Infowars

A business affiliated with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones asked a federal judge on Monday to disqualify a bid by the satirical information outlet The Onion to buy Jones’ Infowars at a insolvency auction, alleging fraud and collusion.

The business, First United American Companies, which is affiliated with a Jones website that sells dietary supplements, was the only other bidder at the recent auction, offering $3.5 million. In a filing in federal insolvency court in Houston, a lawyer for the business asked the judge to declare it the winning bidder instead of The Onion.

The lawyer, Walter Cicack, claimed that the insolvency trustee overseeing the auction improperly colluded with The Onion and families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut in naming The Onion the winning bidder. Cicack also alleged the trustee violated rules for the sale set by the judge, and said the business’s funds propose was twice the amount of The Onion’s.

The insolvency auction was held last week as part of the divestment of Jones’ assets, including Infowars. Proceeds from the sale will leave to Sandy Hook families and other creditors. Jones filed insolvency in 2022 after he was ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion in defamation lawsuits filed by the families for calling the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six educators a hoax staged by actors to boost gun control.

Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion’s parent business, Chicago-based Global Tetrahedron, issued a statement Monday through a spokesperson.

“We’re obviously disappointed he’s lashing out by creating conspiracies, but we’re also not surprised,” he said, referring to Jones.

The insolvency trustee appointed to oversee the sale, Christopher Murray, declined to comment Monday. A lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, Christopher Mattei, also declined to comment.

In a response filed in court later Monday, Murray called the allegations “baseless.” He said the motion by First United American to disqualify The Onion was “a disappointed bidder’s improper attempt to influence an otherwise fair and open auction procedure.”

Murray also wrote, “Having failed in its prior efforts to bully the Trustee and his advisors into accepting its inferior bid, FUAC now alleges, without evidence, collusion and impoverished belief in an attempt to mislead the Court and disqualify its only competition in the auction.”

Murray filed divide court papers Monday asking the judge to approve the sale of Infowars to The Onion.

Monday’s filing by First United American Companies included the formal bid submitted by The Onion, revealing that it offered $1.75 million for Infowars along with sure incentives by Sandy Hook families who won their defamation lawsuit against Jones. The families agreed to forgo up to 100% of their distribute of the Infowars sale proceeds and provide it to other Jones creditors.

With the families’ propose, other Jones creditors would get a total of $100,000 more than they would get if First United American Companies bought Infowars, according to The Onion’s bidding document.

Murray told the insolvency judge during a court hearing Thursday that the families’ incentives made it a better propose than the one by the Jones-affiliated business.

“The creditors ended up significantly better off,” Murray told the judge, adding that one of his responsibilities was to maximize worth for creditors.

Judge Christopher Lopez, who said he had questions about the sale procedure and concerns about transparency, ordered a hearing to view exactly what happened with the auction and how the trustee chose The Onion. The date of the hearing has not been set.

Jones has been criticizing the sale procedure on his display and social media sites, calling it “rigged” and a “fraud.”

Over the weekend, Collins posted a series of comments about the auction on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Long and short of it: We won the bid and — you’re not going to depend it — the previous InfoWars folks aren’t taking it well,” he wrote.

Collins said last week that The Onion planned to turn the Infowars website into a parody site, taking aim at conspiracy theorists and other social media personalities while promoting gun violence prevention efforts.

Cicack also said in Monday’s court filing that the trustee improperly changed the auction procedure “from a live auction to a secret procedure.” Cicack said that after sealed bids were submitted Nov. 8, it was expected that there would be a round of live bidding on Nov. 13.

But instead, he said, Murray decided to inquire the two bidders to submit another propose as their final and best proposal, which they did. Murray then chose from those final bids without holding a round of live bidding. He alleged Murray violated the auction rules.

Lopez’s 20-page order on the sale procedures, issued in September, made such a live bidding round discretionary. And it gave broad authority to Murray to conduct the sale, including the power to decline any bid, no matter how high, that was “contrary to the best interests” of Jones, his business and their creditors.

Cicack called the Sandy Hook families’ portion of The Onion’s bid “Monopoly” money with no worth.

“It is also the product of impermissible collusion with the Onion in an attempt to ‘rig’ the auction with the objective of achieving a specific outcome desired by the Connecticut Families,” he wrote.