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Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

nytimes.com

811–820 of 1001 posts

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the legal pretext, which appears about 2/3 of the way through the article: > Judge Lopez said that the bankruptcy auction failed to maximize the amount of money that the sale of Infowars should provide to Mr. Jones’s creditors, including the Sandy Hook families, in part because the bids were submitted in secret.

Shouldn't all of the mechanics of the auction been agreed upon explicitly or at least implicitly with past precedent of bankruptcy auctions? How did the lawyers go ahead of an auction that even had a chance of being thrown out by the judge?

This is something that was brought up in the hearings.

For starters, one issue here is the Judge is just, frankly, bad at giving instructions. He left how the auction should be ran up to the Trustee who ultimately used an auction company which handles these sorts of liquation auctions. He didn't give clear instructions on what he wanted.

FAUC (alex jones's new company) did not raise any issues with the auction until after they found out that they lost. They had multiple communications with the auction house and the trustee right up until the winners were announced. It was only after they lost that they started throwing a stink about how the auction was ran.

Frankly, it's a bad faith argument by FAUC that's just sour grapes over losing. They were always going to challenge the results on a loss, but it does look bad for them that they didn't do that until after the loss.

Lopezes problem with the auction was mainly that he felt like the amounts were too low. He didn't really explain why he felt that and has left everything really ambiguous (not a good judge IMO). He has left the managing of infowars under the care of the Trustee and has basically given them a "fix it" order with really no clear guidelines on how they are supposed to do that (other than don't do another auction).

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#812

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the clip of the testimony at the key moment in the trial. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DMbGhAU77ns?feature=share 1. The phone records are from the last 2 years. So not during the time frame of the actual broadcasts about Sandy Hook happened ( which happened way earlier...) 2. He gave the phone records to his lawyer, which goes against claims of him not co-operating. His lawyers would determine which messages…

> The prosecution also acted unethically by not informing the defence that they received protected communications, they weren't entitled to. This is a flat-out lie. https://www.nextpoint.com/ediscovery-blog/alex-jones-ediscov... "For example, why didn’t Mr. Jones’ attorney take advantage of the 'snap-back' provision in the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure (Rule 193.3) and assert a privilege on the text messages within…

>>"My assumption is now that you did not intend to send us this? Let me know if >>I am correct.'"

Full motion: https://craigball.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/585543969-f...

"My assumption is now that you did not intend to send us this? Let me know if I am correct.” Id.

In response thereto, Reynal instructed Bankston that “there appears to have been a mistake in the file transfer. […] Disregard the link and I will work on resending. Id."

Still doesn't excuse the prosecution from not informing the judge in a prompt manner, that they had received the information, who's lack of they used to get a default judgment. They let an entire trial happen, and still did not inform the judge that they had received the information. Prosecution only did so after the defence filled this motion.

>>Your own clip shows he lied under oath, stating he personally searched the

>> phone for "Sandy Hook" and got zero results.

It's possible he lied, but there's other explanations.

1. We don't actually know what kind of phone he was using, and its search capabilities. You're assuming it was the latest apple or Samsung. But it could have been a very basic phone, with limited search capability.

2. The phone in question, was not the one he searched. As Alex was likely using multiple phones (quite possible) over a span of 2 years. Gave the old one to his lawyer to backup, and searched his new phone. People lose or brake or upgrades phones all the time. The backup may not always restore everything. So it's possible there's a difference between what was given to the lawyer and the phone he searched, without any malice.

3. It's possible he searched for Sandy Hook, and still had no results for technical reasons. Eg. Gave the phone to the defence to backup. The backup copied the phone's data to a computer, but also erased the phone.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling to a business involved with the individual that lost in court.. It seems like a Fraudulent Conveyance to my non lawyer self (but I could be wrong) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_conveyance

The fraudulent conveyance may have been the move of the vitamin company itself, but the purchase in bankruptcy wouldn't be a fraudulent transation.

Letting Jones buy back his 'bankrupt' assets using money he fraudulently hid goes against the spirit of the law, even in the purchasing phase.

This guy should be living in his parents basement and barred from publishing on any significant media platforms. He's proven willing to exploit victims for personal gain to the tune of the millions of dollars.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does really appear that America's getting her own, homegrown oligarchs.

Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller... we've had them.

They've mostly kept a low profile since the Great Depression though. And plenty would be oligarchs were taxed out of the upper class by the WW2 tax brackets.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#815
post #506

The amount of folks here supporting Alex Jones is completely shocking to me. He built a business out of attacking and re-victimizing parents whose children were murdered. He's scum of the earth. That business was taken away from him, and folks think that's too much? What the actual fuck.

You're surprised? In any vaguely political thread HN is pretty much just a more well-spoken 4chan. Moderation here is entirely based on tone, not content, which along with its techno-libertarian origins makes it the perfect breeding ground for fascists and pseudo-intellectualism.

> Moderation here is entirely based on tone, not content

My least favorite thing about reading HN, by far. Glad someone else said it.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judge Lopez was appointed by Trump, so I'd assume that he's acting under instructions. Why would Trump have appointed a judge who wouldn't do favors for him?

I hope you realize that he can't fire judges just because he appointed them.

I believe the implication isn’t that he’d be fired. Rather that doing the bidding of the far right (as instructed) was the deal he made to get the job. I look at it as payment for services rendered.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hugely depends on the circumstances.

No it really doesn't. There are no legal consequences for insulting someone, unless you actually defame them. Nearly all defamation cases are dismissed by the court immediately for not rising to the very high level of facts required for defamation.

Yes, defamation. Many such cases are dismissed; this one was not and resulted in large punitive damages being awarded.

Less relevant to this case, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress can also both be against the law in the United States.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who? Trump? What does that have to do with anything?

Well supposedly federal govt can't intervene in state cases but the conviction against trump is at the state level, so why isn't he being sentenced? Because power isn't about rules.

His conviction wasn't overturned, they are just delaying his sentencing because he's now going to be the president again. He's not doing it by any power of the federal gov't.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#819
post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t about politics, it’s about justice. The only reason politics is even in the equation is because Jones has made his living as a political blatherskite.

Law is almost inherently poliical. Politics was in the equation the moment Jones decided to pretend a tragic school shooting was fake news.

So where is justice in this equation then?

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? That's exactly what they did.

Did you read the article? Jones was arguing that the families shouldn't be able to do that but the article doesn't say anything about whether he won that argument and the only reason it specifies for why the judge rejected the sale is this: > Judge Lopez said that the bankruptcy auction failed to maximize the amount of money that the sale of Infowars should provide to Mr. Jones’s creditors, including the Sandy Hook f…

Hence the if
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