In our Reality Check stories, Idaho Statesman journalists seek to hold the powerful accountable and find answers to critical questions in our community. Read more. Story idea? Tips@idahostatesman.com.
In the year after a jury ordered far-right activist Ammon Bundy to pay millions for defaming St. Luke’s employees, Bundy lost his Emmett home, went into hiding and moved to Utah.
Now, he’s declaring bankruptcy, according to court documents filed by Bundy on Wednesday.
“Today, just a few hours ago, I filed bankruptcy,” Bundy said in a live YouTube video posted Wednesday evening titled “Gone Bankrupt!”
Bundy 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 associate 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 entire life,” Bundy said in the video. “Bankruptcy is something that is completely against my nature. But in this circumstance, I basically have really no choice.”
The defamation case 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 defendants were found to have posted numerous lies online about the hospital system, its health professionals and the reason the baby was taken into custody.
In Bundy’s telling in Wednesday’s video, he is “one of many political enemies” who have been financially hit for political reasons. Others listed by Bundy included 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 bankruptcy last year when law enforcement arrested him at his son’s high school football banquet.
“I was just really bothered by the whole thing, how they did it,” Bundy said in the video. “And it was just terrible that they did it there and then and all of that. And then I’m thinking, ‘Well, how am I ever going to be free from this?’ ”
He said the idea of bankruptcy “came into (his) mind” in jail and “filled (him) with peace.” He is filing bankruptcy “out of obedience to the Lord,” Bundy said.
Bundy said he hopes a bankruptcy judge will discharge his debt. A person cannot be legally required to pay any debts discharged in 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 the chance to rectify this.”
Bundy could face significant legal hurdles
However, bankruptcy laws make it difficult for applicants to get court fines discharged. Debt gained through “willful and malicious injury by the debtor to another entity” can’t be discharged, according to federal law.
Bruce Markell, a bankruptcy law professor at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and former federal bankruptcy judge, pointed toward the high-profile case of radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was found guilty of defamation related to his lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Jones filed for bankruptcy after the lawsuit, but a judge ruled that most of his debts couldn’t be discharged because they were incurred through willful and malicious injury.
“A lot of these people who are filing bankruptcy are very surprised when things don’t go their way,” Markell said. “I think Bundy made a miscalculation. Or he knows what he’s doing, and he knows this will buy him a couple months before the court gets around to dismissing the case.”
In his Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings, Bundy listed his new address in New Harmony, Utah, and his financial counselor as “Stand Sure Credit Counseling a/k/a Biblical Financial Concepts” out of Alabama.
The amount of Bundy’s financial holdings has long been a source of contention in the legal cases surrounding him. St. Luke’s previously accused Bundy of hiding assets. In the bankruptcy filing, Bundy outlined his earnings and assets.
Bundy said he makes $11,100 per month ($133,200 annually) and spends $10,616 each month. He listed $1,573,300 in assets, most of which he said are 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 house, valued at $1.4 million, to his friend Aaron Welling “to try and avoid losing our home to St. Luke’s Health System executives.”
Erik Stidham, an attorney representing St. Luke’s and the defamation plaintiffs, told the Statesman that “evidence conflicts with representations made in Bundy’s bankruptcy filings and that the bankruptcy proceedings should assist St. Luke’s efforts to identify any assets Bundy may be hiding.”
“As reflected in various filings and court orders entered in the year following the verdict, Mr. Bundy was, in fact, a multi-millionaire at the time of the verdict,” Stidham told the Statesman by email. “Contrary to representations made by Mr. Bundy to his followers and the public, Mr. Bundy was not a man of limited means.”
Hiding assets while seeking bankruptcy is a crime, Markell said.
“There are things called bankruptcy crimes, and, when he submits disclosures to the courts under penalty of perjury, if he’s found to knowingly and fraudulently file false statements or didn’t include 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 “representations about his wealth and oppose the discharge of a judgment based on findings that Mr. Bundy lied and intentionally harmed St. Luke’s and the other plaintiffs in order to get publicity and money.”
