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In the year after a jury convicted the far-right activist Ammon Bundy To pay millions for defaming St. Luke's employees, Bundy lost his home in Emmett, went underground and moved to Utah.
Now he is filing for bankruptcy, according to court documents Bundy filed on Wednesday.
“Today, just a few hours ago, I filed for bankruptcy,” Bundy said in a live YouTube video posted Wednesday night titled “Gone Bankrupt!”
Bundy has said the only debt he owes is $53 million to St. Luke's Health System. In July 2023, an Ada County jury ordered Bundy, his partner Diego Rodriguez and their entities to pay $52.5 million in damages for defaming St. Luke's and some of its employees.
“I've been very good with my finances my whole life,” Bundy said in the video. “Bankruptcy is something that goes completely against my nature. But in these circumstances, I really have no choice.”
The defamation lawsuit began after Bundy and Rodriguez led protests at St. Luke's hospitals in Meridian and downtown Boise in March 2022 over a child welfare case involving Rodriguez's 10-month-old grandchild.
The suspects were found to have posted numerous lies online about the hospital system, its care providers and the reason the baby was taken into custody.
According to Bundy's account in Wednesday's video, he is “one of many political enemies” who have been financially targeted for political reasons. Others Bundy listed include former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Bundy did not respond to the Idaho Statesman's request for comment.
“The Lord wants me to go bankrupt”
Bundy said he began thinking about filing for bankruptcy last year when he was arrested by police at his son's high school football party.
“I was just really irritated by the whole thing, the way they did it,” Bundy said in the video. “And it was just horrible that they did it there and then and all that stuff. And then I think, 'Well, how am I ever going to get over this?'”
He said the idea of bankruptcy “came to mind” in prison and “filled him with peace.” He is filing for bankruptcy “out of obedience to the Lord,” Bundy said.
Bundy said he hopes a bankruptcy judge will forgive his debt. A person cannot legally be required to pay debts that have been forgiven by the court, according to the U.S. Courts website.
“I know the Lord wants me to go bankrupt,” Bundy said. “And I think he wants to give the bankruptcy court a chance to make this right.”
Bundy could face significant legal hurdles
Bankruptcy laws, however, make it difficult for filers to get discharged from court-ordered fines. Debts incurred through “intentional and malicious injury by the debtor to another entity” cannot be discharged, according to federal law.
Bruce Markell, a professor of bankruptcy law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and a former federal bankruptcy judge, pointed to the high-profile case of radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was found guilty of defamation in connection with his lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Jones filed for bankruptcy after the trial, but a judge ruled that most of his debts could not be discharged because they arose from intentional and malicious injury.
“A lot of these people who file for bankruptcy are very surprised when things don't go their way,” Markell said. “I think Bundy miscalculated. Or he knows what he's doing and he knows this is going to buy him a couple of months before the court dismisses the case.”
In his Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing, Bundy listed his new address as New Harmony, Utah, and his financial advisor as “Stand Sure Credit Counseling a/k/a Biblical Financial Concepts” of Alabama.
The size of Bundy's financial holdings has long been a source of contention in the lawsuits surrounding him. St. Luke's previously accused Bundy of concealing assets. In his bankruptcy filing, Bundy outlined his income and assets.
Bundy said he makes $11,100 a month ($133,200 a year) and spends $10,616 each month. He listed $1,573,300 in assets, most of which he said is in real estate. He gave $24,000 to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints between 2022 and 2024, according to his filing.
One section asked Bundy if he had sold any property. Bundy said he sold his $1.4 million home to his friend Aaron Welling “to keep us from losing our home to the executives of St. Luke's Health System.”
Erik Stidham, an attorney representing St. Luke's and the plaintiffs in the defamation case, told the Statesman that “evidence contradicts statements made in Bundy's bankruptcy filing and the bankruptcy proceedings should support St. Luke's efforts to identify assets that Bundy may be hiding.”
“As evidenced by various documents and court orders filed in the year following the verdict, Mr. Bundy was in fact a multimillionaire at the time of the verdict,” Stidham told the Statesman in an email. “Contrary to what Mr. Bundy has represented to his followers and the public, Mr. Bundy was not a man of limited means.”
Hiding assets during a bankruptcy filing is a crime, Markell said.
“There are things called bankruptcy crimes. If he makes disclosures to the court under penalty of perjury and he is found knowingly and fraudulently filing false statements or concealing things, then he can be prosecuted for a bankruptcy crime, which is a felony,” Markell said.
Stidham said St. Luke's plans to work within the bankruptcy process to address Bundy's “statements about his assets and to oppose the discharge of a judgment based on findings that Mr. Bundy lied and intentionally harmed St. Luke's and the other plaintiffs to gain publicity and money.”
