A company affiliated with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones asked a federal judge on Monday to disqualify a offered by satirical news channel The Onion to buy Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, alleging fraud and collusion.

The company, First United American Companies, which is affiliated with a Jones website that sells dietary supplements, was the only other bidder at the recent auction, offering $3.5 million. In a filing in federal bankruptcy court in Houston, a lawyer for the company asked the judge to declare it the winning bidder instead of The Onion.

The attorney, Walter Cicack, alleged that the bankruptcy trustee overseeing the auction improperly colluded with The Onion and the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut to name The Onion the winning bidder. Cicack also argued that the receiver violated the rules of the sale set by the judge and said the company’s cash offer was twice that of The Onion.

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The bankruptcy auction took place last week as part of the liquidation of Jones’ assets, including Infowars. Proceeds from the sale will go to Sandy Hook families and other creditors. Jones filed for bankruptcy in 2022 after being forced to pay nearly $1.5 billion in defamation lawsuits filed by families for calling the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six educators a hoax staged by actors to increase gun control.

Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion’s parent company, Chicago-based Global Tetrahedron, issued a statement Monday through a spokesman.

“We’re obviously disappointed that he’s attacking by creating conspiracies, but we’re also not surprised,” he said, referring to Jones.

The bankruptcy trustee appointed to oversee the sale, Christopher Murray, declined to comment Monday. An attorney for the Sandy Hook families, Christopher Mattei, also declined to comment.

In a response filed in court months later, Murray called the allegations “baseless.” He said First United American’s motion to disqualify The Onion was “an improper attempt by a disappointed bidder to influence an otherwise fair and open bidding process.”

Murray also wrote: “Having failed in its previous efforts to induce the administrator and its advisers to accept its lower offer, FUAC now alleges, without evidence, collusion and bad faith in an attempt to mislead the Court and to disqualify its only competition in the tender. .”

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Murray filed separate court papers Monday asking the judge to approve the sale of Infowars to The Onion.

Monday’s filing by First United American Companies included the formal offer submitted by The Onion, revealing that it offered $1.75 million to Infowars, along with certain incentives from the Sandy Hook families who won the defamation lawsuit against Jones . The families agreed to give up up to 100% of their share of the proceeds from the sale of Infowars and give it to other Jones creditors.

With the families’ offer, other Jones creditors would receive a total of $100,000 more than they would if First United American Companies bought Infowars, according to The Onion’s bid document.

Murray told the bankruptcy judge during Thursday’s court hearing that the families’ incentives made it a better offer than the Jones-affiliated company’s.

“Creditors ended up much better off,” Murray told the judge, adding that one of his responsibilities was to maximize value for creditors.

Judge Christopher Lopez, who said he had questions about the sale process and concerns about transparency, ordered a hearing to look into exactly what happened with the auction and how The Onion’s administrator chose. A hearing date has not been set.

Jones criticized the sales process on his show and on his social media sites, calling it “fake” and a “fraud.”

Over the weekend, Collins posted a series of comments about the auction on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Long story short: I won the bid and — you’re not going to believe it — the old InfoWars folks are not taking it well,” he wrote.

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Collins said last week that The Onion plans to turn the Infowars website into a parody site, going after conspiracy theorists and other social media personalities while promoting gun violence prevention efforts.

Cicack also said in Monday’s filing that the administrator improperly changed the bidding process “from a real auction to a secret process.” Cicack said that after sealed bids were submitted on November 8, there was expected to be a round of live bidding on November 13.

But instead, he said, Murray decided to ask the two bidders to submit another bid as the final and best proposal, which they did. Murray then chose from these final offers without holding a live bidding round. He claimed that Murray had broken the rules of the auction.

Lopez’s 20-page order on sale procedures, issued in September, made such a live auction round optional. And it gave Murray broad authority to carry out the sale, including the power to reject any bid, no matter how high, that was “contrary to the best interests” of Jones, his company and their creditors.

Cicack called the Sandy Hook families’ share of The Onion’s “Monopoly” bid worthless money.

“It is also the product of impermissible collusion with the Onion in an effort to ‘fix’ the auction to achieve a specific outcome desired by Connecticut families,” he wrote.