A bankruptcy trustee probing Alex Jones’ Infowars said the company’s financial records “are not in good order,” but she’s made “significant headway” in investigating the amount of money it has paid or transferred to the right-wing conspiracist in the last 11 years.
Financial records are incomplete and “the accuracy is uncertain,” bankruptcy trustee Melissa Haselden said in a heavily redacted report filed Thursday with the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Free Speech Systems and Jones both filed for bankruptcy protection last year in the face of Texas and Connecticut court rulings that awarded Sandy Hook victim families more than $1 billion for his lies claiming the shooting was a hoax.
Haselden said she’s found a number of potential claims or legal actions that could be brought in the bankruptcy case. But her probe hasn’t found any ongoing activity that would allow for new claims against Free Speech Systems, she said.
Details about the trustee’s findings were redacted from the report. Sandy Hook victims’ families have asked the court to remove Jones and his bankrupt company from controlling its operations and Chapter 11 proceedings, arguing he improperly seized millions of dollars in assets. Jones has denied the allegations.
Haselden was appointed in September by Texas bankruptcy Judge Christopher M. Lopez to investigate Free Speech Systems’s finances due to what the judge said was a “lack of candor” by some of its former advisers. Her appointment also would increase case transparency, Lopez said.
The judge on Friday approved Jones to employ attorneys on an interim basis using roughly $700,000 in retainer funds from a trust connected to Jones’ father, David Jones.
The case is Alexander E. Jones, Bankr. S.D. Tex., No. 4:22-bk-33553, report 1/19/23.
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