The lawyer responsible for guiding Alex Jones' media company through bankruptcy will ask a judge for permission to drop out of the case at a court hearing next week, saying that he has irreparable disagreements with the company's management, Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston, Texas, said on Friday that he would convene an emergency hearing on March 11 to consider a request by Ray Battaglia, who has been lead bankruptcy counsel for Infowars' parent company Free Speech Systems since 2022 after Battaglia said his relationship with the company's chief restructuring officer, Patrick Magill is "fundamentally broken." Magill, who is in charge of day-to-day operations at FSS, has withheld Battaglia's legal fees for January and February as "blatant retaliation" for a Jan. 25 disagreement about whether or not FSS should pursue litigation over a legal claim, Battaglia said in a Feb. 29 court filing. Battaglia did not describe the legal claim, but he said that pursuing it would be "ill advised." FSS and Jones filed for bankruptcy after being sued over Jones' repeated lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre.
A judge has since ruled that Jones cannot use his personal bankruptcy to avoid paying at least $1.1 billion in defamation verdicts that the families have won against Jones in court cases in Connecticut and Texas. The families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims have voted for a bankruptcy plan that would liquidate Jones' assets, if approved in court.
