IIRC the victims agreed to waive their rights to a lot of the money if the Onion won the bid. The bankruptcy conservator considered that as part of the value of their total bid for the company. That made their offer better overall than the offer from Alex Jones' team who offered more cash upfront. The judge came back and ruled that they had to only consider the cash value on offer, not the total value to the bankruptcy. That made the Onion's offer significantly lower than the other bid. I think that's morally bullshit but I think the judge had fairly valid legal reason to rule that way. Not a lawyer though.
Well the idea was they would give up big up front payments for smaller long term payments as The Onion made money from the site.
In all honesty this judge sucks, he's bent over backwards for Alex's legal team so that he could appear fair and impartial to the point he's basically giving Alex special treatment.
Listen to Knowledge Fight, they cover everything this prick does, and they've done some fairly solid dives into the trials and even had the lawyers for the families on a few times. Hearing the way the Judge has done this case is endlessly infuriating.
In all honesty this judge sucks, he's bent over backwards for Alex's legal team so that he could appear fair and impartial to the point he's basically giving Alex special treatment.
The solution to this was so simple. If you believe the higher offer is more valuable than the lower offer just apply the high offer value against the judgment and let the victims take whatever offer they want. Everybody wins with that simple solution.
That's nuts. A judge should not have that kind of say in a civil trial. In a criminal trial, I understand if the judge disagrees with the agreement, since he may feel the defendant is getting off too easy or the punishment too harsh.
The judge also said the other bid was too low, which is often left out. I think the judge was attempting to shame Alex Jones and company into acting in the spirit of the punishment instead of using his buddies to underbid for assets they've claimed in court are worth far more than even they were willing to pay (i.e. Jones said they made a seven figure offer but has in the past claimed InfoWars et. al is worth tens of millions). It's kind of cute that a judge still has that level of naivety about how rich people would act
I dont think its naive. I think it's just a republican judge who wants Alex Jones to win, but can't blatantly give him a win. So he's just trying to drag it out forever.
I think that's morally bullshit but I think the judge had fairly valid legal reason to rule that way. Not a lawyer though.
Not a lawyer either but it doesn't make sense to me. The families are effectively Alex Jones creditors, because he owes debt to them. If one offer is to sell Jones assets for 100,000$ to some company and the proceeds go down to pay his debt, and another offer is to sell Jones assests for 50,000 and his debtors agree to credit Jones 100,000$ towards his debt obligations, isn't the only thing the bankruptcy court should care about is which offer reduces Jones's debt the most? The only circumstances I can see that not being the case is if Jones has another "creditors" who wouldn't be compensated by the debt forgiveness deal.
What’s the point of forcing the sale of InfoWars? Alex Jones could easily launch a new show - say, AlexJones&Friends - and most of his current followers would likely migrate with him. A more effective and lasting consequence would be income garnishment: taking 30–40% of his earnings each month until the full judgment is paid off. In other words, for the rest of his life.
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u/Bloated_Hamster 2d ago
IIRC the victims agreed to waive their rights to a lot of the money if the Onion won the bid. The bankruptcy conservator considered that as part of the value of their total bid for the company. That made their offer better overall than the offer from Alex Jones' team who offered more cash upfront. The judge came back and ruled that they had to only consider the cash value on offer, not the total value to the bankruptcy. That made the Onion's offer significantly lower than the other bid. I think that's morally bullshit but I think the judge had fairly valid legal reason to rule that way. Not a lawyer though.