The assets of notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones are to be sold to repay a $1.5 billion debt to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.

Judge Christopher Lopez agreed to convert Jones’ proposed personal bankruptcy case right into a liquidation, but rejected an try and reorganize his company, Free Speech Systems, based in Austin, Texas. Many of the Sandy Hook families had also called for the corporate to be liquidated.

Had Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy been converted to liquidation, Jones could have lost ownership of the corporate, its social media accounts, the Infowars studio in Austin and all copyrights when the corporate’s assets were sold. Jones smiled because the judge dismissed the corporate’s lawsuit.

It was not immediately clear what would occur to Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, which Jones built right into a multimillion-dollar machine over the past 25 years.

One possible scenario could be that the corporate and Infowars could be allowed to proceed operating while efforts are made to gather the $1.5 billion in debt in state courts in Texas and Connecticut, where the families have already won lawsuits against Jones, based on lawyers handling the case.

Another scenario is that lawyers for the Sandy Hook families return to bankruptcy court and ask Lopez to liquidate the corporate as a part of Jones’ personal case because Jones owns the corporate, the lawyers said.

Lopez said his sole focus in deciding whether to dismiss Free Speech Systems’ lawsuit or order liquidation is what’s best for the corporate and its creditors, including the Sandy Hook families. Lopez also said Free Speech Systems’ case appears to be one in every of the longest-running of its kind within the country and that the deadline to resolve the case is approaching.

“I was never asked today to make a decision on whether or not to cancel a show. That would never have happened today anyway,” Lopez said. “This case is one of the more difficult I’ve ever had. When you look at it, I think creditors are better off pursuing their rights in the state courts.”

Many of Jones’ personal assets can be sold, but his primary residence within the Austin area and another properties are exempt from the bankruptcy liquidation. He has already taken steps to sell his Texas ranch, valued at about $2.8 million, a gun collection and other assets to repay debts.

In the run-up to Friday’s hearing, Jones had told his Internet and radio listeners that Free Speech Systems was about to shut due to bankruptcy. He urged them to download videos from his online archive to preserve them and directed them to a brand new website run by his father’s company in the event that they desired to proceed buying the dietary supplements he sells on his show.

“This is probably the end of Infowars here, very, very soon. If not today, then in the next few weeks or months,” Jones told reporters before Friday’s hearing. “But it’s just the beginning of my fight against tyranny.”

Jones has personal assets of about $9 million, based on recent financial filings in court. Free Speech Systems, which employs 44 people, has about $6 million in money and about $1.2 million in inventory, based on J. Patrick Magill, the court-appointed restructuring manager to run the corporate during bankruptcy.

Jones and Free Speech Systems Insolvency protection applied for in 2022, when relatives of many victims of the 2012 school massacre wherein 20 first-graders and 6 teachers were killed in Newtown, Connecticut, won verdicts of greater than $1.4 billion in Connecticut And 49 million dollars in Texas.

Chris Mattei, an attorney for the families within the Connecticut case, said liquidating Free Speech Systems would “allow the Connecticut families to enforce their $1.4 billion judgments now and in the future, while simultaneously denying Jones the ability to inflict mass harm as he has been doing for some 25 years.”

The relatives said they were traumatized by Jones’ comments and the actions of his followers. They testified, harassed and threatened by Jones’ supporters, a few of whom personally confronted the grieving families, saying the shooting never happened and their children never existed. One parent said someone threatened to dig up his dead son’s grave.

Jones and Free Speech Systems initially filed for bankruptcy protection, which might have allowed him to run Infowars while also paying the families with the proceeds from his show. But the 2 sides couldn’t agree on a final plan, and Jones recently applied for approval to convert his personal bankruptcy from a reorganization right into a liquidation.

The families within the Connecticut suit, including relatives of eight dead children and adults, asked that Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy proceedings even be converted to liquidation. But the parents within the Texas suit – whose child, six-year-old Jesse Lewis, died – want the corporate’s lawsuit dismissed.

The company’s lawyers filed documents showing that the corporate favored liquidation, but attorneys in Jones’ personal bankruptcy case wanted the judge to dismiss the corporate’s lawsuit.

Kyle Kimpler, an attorney for the families in search of liquidation, had told the judge that dismissing the lawsuit could lead on to a “race to court.” It’s possible that one family could get all the pieces while one other gets nothing, he added.

Although Jones has since admitted that the Sandy Hook shooting happened, he has claimed in his recent broadcasts that Democrats and the “deep state” are conspiring to shut down his businesses and take away his right to free speech. He has also said that the Sandy Hook families are getting used as pawns within the conspiracy. The families’ lawyers say that is nonsense.

A lawsuit is pending against the families in Texas Jones accused of illegally embezzling and hiding hundreds of thousands of dollarsJones has denied the allegations.