Yeah, this seems like a clear-cut "We want justice, not money" decision. We don't know how much the families gave up (could be a little, could be significant), but whatever it was was the difference between Infowars remaining what it is or utterly destroying Infowars' credibility.
Because now the Wikipedia entry is going to say "parody site" at the top.
> We don't know how much the families gave up (could be a little, could be significant)
It's hard to put yourself in someone else's shoes but as a parent I can imagine the money not playing an important factor at all in this. Money would hopefully be the least of my worries.
Jones owes them $1.5 billion. They're never going to see most of that judgement. They're likely giving up money they were never going to receive anyway.
My hunch is that the judge and everyone involved knows that they aren't going to get anything substantial from Jones, which is why they allowed them to use money they are owed from the judgement as part of the bid. It allows them to get something of value out of the ruling (or at least take something of value from Jones).
> They're likely giving up money they were never going to receive anyway.
They're giving up money that a higher bidder would have paid for infowars. Essentially the difference between The Onion's bid, and the bid of whoever else would buy.
They mean this is what _in practice_ they give up. In theory they can give up more, but this is the actual money difference from what they would have gotten otherwise in reality.
The judge in the case put the brakes on the sale after it was revealed that the bankruptcy trustee did not accept the highest bid, and instead allowed the Sandy Hook families to 'assist' by pledging their massive judgement towards the auction.
It isn't reasonable to pledge money they didn't have because the families aren't the only creditors of the estate. The rest of the creditors get a lower recovery if the assets are "sold" for the price of one group reducing their claim.
I'm a parent. I've woken up in a panic just because I had a bad dream that something bad happened to my kid.
If I were one of the Sandy Hook families, I don't know if anything in life would ever bring me true joy again. But contributing to this would make me smile a little.
"InfoWars was an American far-right[2] conspiracy theory[3] and fake news website[1] created by Alex Jones.[36][37] It was founded in 1999, and operated under Free Speech Systems LLC."
Because now the Wikipedia entry is going to say "parody site" at the top.