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Gawker Media Chief Executive Nick Denton filed for personal bankruptcy protection yesterday, according to court documents that name his largest creditor as Hulk Hogan, a former professional wrestler who won a $140 million court judgment against the news website over a sex tape it posted, Reuters reported. Denton listed assets of $10 million to $50 million and liabilities of $100 million to $500 million in his chapter 11 petition filed at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy in June after Hogan won the judgment. The wrestler had accused the site of violating his privacy by posting a sex tape featuring Hogan having sex with the wife of his then-best friend, the radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. According to court documents, Denton is personally liable for $125 million of the $140 million judgment won by Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea.

Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. (CEOC) has broadened the support for its $18 billion debt-restructuring plan, adding certain junior bondholders to the list of top creditors that have pledged to back the proposal, the Wall Street Journal reported today. CEOC said yesterday that holders of about 37 percent of its $5.2 billion in second-lien bond debt have signed a restructuring support agreement with the bankrupt casino operator and its corporate parent, which isn’t in chapter 11. CEOC has previously reached similar deals with its parent, senior bank lenders, senior bondholders and unsecured creditors. For the restructuring support agreement with the second-lien bondholders to take effect, CEOC said it must secure the support of creditors holding more than 50.1 percent of that debt. A prior support agreement with a minority of second-lien bondholders crumbled last year when CEOC couldn’t meet that threshold. Other holders of second-lien bond debt have been vocal opponents of CEOC’s restructuring, although CEOC said that it will continue to work toward a consensual plan.

Flying Star’s owners have filed a reorganization plan in bankruptcy court that would allow them to retain control of the restaurant chain they built in exchange for surrendering their own claims against the company and putting up $1.5 million in new capital to pay off creditors, the Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal reported on Saturday. But their creditors are working on their own competing plan that would mean selling the restaurant chain to another local firm. Flying Star owners Jean and Mark Bernstein filed their reorganization plan in court on Friday. Under their plan, the Bernsteins would bid $1.5 million for new shares of stock in the company and continued management. The infusion would allow Flying Star to pay taxes and other priority claims immediately, pay other creditors, like lenders, in full on an installment basis, and pay the unsecured creditors a total of $790,101. That amounts to 21.5 percent of the unsecured creditors’ $3.67 million in claims, according to the filing. The attorney for Flying Star’s unsecured creditors committee said earlier on Friday — before the Bernsteins filed their plan — that he was working on a “competing plan” based on Southwest Brands’ indication that it wanted to buy Flying Star for $2.5 million.

After a four-year investigation, Rhode Island authorities summed up a $75 million financing package used by the state in 2010 to lure Curt Schilling’s video game company from Massachusetts as a flawed deal, but not a crime, the Boston Globe reported on Saturday. Schilling’s 38 Studios filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and it owes $89 million on the loans it received. “A bad deal doesn’t always equate to an indictment,” said Steven G. O’Donnell, superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police. O’Donnell and Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin said their probe, which included interviews with more than 140 people and a review of hundreds of documents, found problems with the deal but no criminal violations. Kilmartin said the case would remain open in case new evidence arises out of a civil lawsuit and a fraud case that the Securities and Exchange Commission is pursuing over allegations that a state economic development agency and Wells Fargo Securities misled investors over the municipal bonds issued to finance the project.

Gawker Media founder Nick Denton lost his latest bid to halt enforcement of the $140 million verdict won by Hulk Hogan in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit, according to a court document provided by the former pro wrestler’s attorney, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday. Florida Judge Pamela Campbell said on Friday that she would let Hogan try to collect the jury award — in part because, she said, Denton misled her at a June 10 hearing about the value of his company stock. Denton had told the court at the hearing that he would use stock in Gawker worth $81 million as security to guarantee payment of the jury verdict. But the media company had, just the day before, approved resolutions to put itself into bankruptcy, according to the court document. Also, in May, a potential buyer had offered to make an opening bid of $90 million for the company’s assets, meaning Denton’s shares would be worth much less than what the court was told. The judge said Denton hid “material information about the value of that stock which a reasonable person, under similar circumstances, should have disclosed.”