Rebel Creamery has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Utah, reporting approximately $13.78 million in assets and $23.85 million in liabilities as it appeals a $23.785 million judgment awarded to rival Van Leeuwen Ice Cream in a trade-dress dispute.

Rebel ice cream is sold at Walmart, Kroger, Safeway and other grocery stores nationwide.

Rebel Creamery LLC filed for Chapter 11 protection on Aug. 14 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Utah, according to court records.

Van Leeuwen is listed among Rebel’s unsecured creditors with a $23.785 million claim stemming from the federal judgment. Rebel listed the claim as disputed and noted that the judgment is under appeal.

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Rebel Creamery has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following a multimillion-dollar judgment in a packaging dispute with rival Van Leeuwen Ice Cream. (Getty Images )

The Van Leeuwen judgment accounts for nearly all the unsecured liabilities that Rebel listed at fixed amounts in its bankruptcy schedules. The company also reported approximately $5.22 million in cash and cash equivalents, $2.59 million in accounts receivable and $5.65 million in inventory.

Rebel’s voluntary petition estimated both its assets and liabilities at between $10 million and $50 million and said funds would be available for distribution to unsecured creditors. The filing lists Austin Archibald as the company’s manager and member and Michael Johnson of Ray Quinney & Nebeker as bankruptcy counsel.

The bankruptcy filing came less than a month after U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee ruled that Rebel had intentionally infringed and diluted Van Leeuwen’s trade dress through its ice cream packaging.

Rebel ice cream is sold at Walmart locations. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

“The evidence at that trial left no doubt that Rebel infringed and diluted Van Leeuwen’s trade dress and did so intentionally,” Komitee wrote in a July 16 memorandum and order.

Van Leeuwen sued Rebel in 2021, alleging that the company’s packaging copied the distinctive appearance of its ice cream pints.

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The court described Van Leeuwen’s trade dress as including monochromatic cardboard pints with matching lids, a primarily pastel color palette, black script lettering and an overall minimalist design.

Komitee found that Rebel’s packaging was similar and that the evidence supported findings of consumer confusion and bad faith. The judge ordered Rebel to stop selling products bearing trade dress likely to be confused with Van Leeuwen’s and required the company to redesign its packaging.

President Joe Biden, flanked by host Seth Meyers, patronized Van Leeuwen Ice Cream after taping an episode of “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in New York City on Feb. 26, 2024. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Van Leeuwen sought $36.4 million in Rebel’s profits, but the court reduced the award by 33%, finding that some sales were driven by demand for keto and better-for-you ice cream rather than the packaging at issue.

The reduction left Van Leeuwen entitled to $23.785 million in Rebel’s profits from sales of ice cream pints bearing the infringing trade dress.

Court filings do not establish that the Van Leeuwen judgment was the sole cause of Rebel’s bankruptcy filing.

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Rebel’s bankruptcy paperwork lists the Van Leeuwen litigation as being on appeal.

Prince Harry is planning to make significantly more frequent trips back to the United Kingdom in the coming year, according to a report in The Times, following what a source close to the Duke of Sussex described as an “energising” reunion with King Charles III last month.

Harry last visited the UK in July, bringing his wife, Meghan Markle, and their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, from their home in California. The trip marked the first time in more than four years that King Charles had been reunited with his grandchildren, now ages seven and four. The family met privately with Charles and Queen Camilla at Highgrove House, the King’s private residence in Gloucestershire, in a gathering that had been kept largely under wraps until after it occurred.

According to The Times, a source close to Harry said the success of that visit has convinced him to return to Britain considerably more often going forward. “The template for his visits has been working well, so the frequency of trips will increase,” the source said, adding that the pace of Harry’s trips would pick up further in the run-up to the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham, an event Harry founded and has said he is determined to make the best edition of the competition yet. The source said Harry has grown increasingly focused on his charitable patronages during these visits and hopes to spend less time on legal disputes going forward, while continuing to prioritize time with his family whenever he returns.

Harry’s next UK trip is expected in September, when he will attend the WellChild Awards, a charity event honoring seriously ill children and their caregivers that Harry has attended annually as the organization’s patron. That visit is expected to last roughly a week and will also include continued preparation for the Birmingham Games.

The Highgrove reunion followed a lengthy period of estrangement between Harry and his father. The two had not met in person since February 2024, a gap of roughly 19 months, before reconnecting for a private tea at Clarence House in September 2025. Harry has spoken candidly in the past about his desire to repair the relationship, telling the BBC following a separate visit that he did not know how much longer his father had, referencing Charles’s ongoing cancer treatment, and expressing hope for reconciliation. “I would love reconciliation with my family,” Harry said at the time, adding that he saw no benefit in continuing to fight with relatives.

The relationship between Harry and the royal family has remained strained since he and Meghan stepped back from their roles as senior working royals in 2020 and relocated to California. That estrangement deepened considerably following the couple’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, their Netflix documentary series, and Harry’s 2023 memoir, “Spare,” all of which detailed private family disputes and tensions with both Charles and Prince William. A separate legal battle over Harry’s publicly funded security arrangements during UK visits further complicated the relationship, with Harry saying in 2025 that his father had stopped speaking with him specifically because of the ongoing security dispute.

During the family’s July visit, Harry, Meghan and their children also traveled to Althorp in Northamptonshire, the ancestral home of the Spencer family and the burial site of Harry’s mother, Princess Diana. Harry spent time there with his uncle, Charles Spencer, the ninth Earl Spencer, and Spencer’s wife, Norwegian archaeologist Dr. Cat Jarman. Meghan later shared photos from the visit on Instagram, including images showing Harry and Archie carrying flowers believed to have been placed at Diana’s grave, along with photos from the family’s broader summer travels, including time spent at their holiday home in Portugal.

It remains unclear whether Meghan and the couple’s children will accompany Harry on each of his more frequent planned visits going forward, or whether some of the increased travel will involve Harry returning to the UK alone to focus specifically on his charitable and Invictus-related commitments. Buckingham Palace has not issued official comment on the reported plans for more frequent visits.

With Invictus Games preparations intensifying and Harry’s relationship with his father showing signs of continued warming following the July reunion, the coming months are likely to offer further indications of whether the reported shift toward more regular UK visits materializes as described, and whether it corresponds with any broader, sustained improvement in Harry’s relationship with the rest of the royal family beyond his father.

TUCSON, Ariz. — The president of the union representing Pima County sheriff’s deputies says the investigation into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was hampered from its earliest days by a homicide unit left short of experienced detectives following an unrelated internal personnel dispute.

Sgt. Aaron Cross, president of the Pima County Deputies Organization, detailed his account of the staffing issues in an interview published August 15 by TMZ. According to Cross, two of the department’s most senior homicide detectives had been investigating a separate homicide case and were building probable cause against a suspect when a commander pressured them to make an arrest before they believed the case was ready. “What happened is two most senior detectives in the Homicide unit had been transferred out,” Cross said, adding that when the detectives declined to arrest the suspect prematurely, they were reassigned out of the Homicide Unit and into the Cold Case Unit.

Cross said that reassignment, which predated Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance and was unrelated to her case, ultimately left the Homicide Unit short-staffed and inexperienced by the time she vanished from her Tucson home in the early hours of February 1. According to Cross, the sergeant placed in charge of the Guthrie investigation had been promoted to that rank only in 2023 and had no prior homicide experience before rapidly moving from patrol duty into the unit. Cross said the detectives assigned to assist likewise had limited experience, generally three years or less, which he described as an unusual staffing decision for a case that quickly drew intense local and national scrutiny.

Cross’s account of the commander who ordered the earlier reassignment, whom he described as one of Sheriff Chris Nanos’s “favoured sons,” has not been independently confirmed. Cross has a documented history of political friction with Nanos. According to Fox News, Nanos placed Cross on administrative leave in the weeks before the sheriff’s contested 2024 re-election, which he won by just 481 votes, after Cross had publicly opposed him and allegedly collaborated with one of his election opponents. That history should be weighed alongside Cross’s latest allegations, which reflect his own characterization of internal department dynamics rather than an independently verified account.

Cross’s criticism echoes concerns raised earlier this year by separate sources. Fox News Digital reported in April, citing two sources with knowledge of the department, that only one detective assigned to the Homicide Unit at the time of Guthrie’s disappearance had more than three years of experience, while five others had less than two years, and that the sergeant supervising the unit had roughly six months of experience in that role and had never personally worked a homicide case before being placed in charge.

Sheriff Nanos has pushed back against ongoing criticism of the investigation’s handling. Addressing scrutiny of the case earlier this year, Nanos said internal or political commentary distracts from the active investigation, and that his department’s focus remains on pursuing justice and transparency for the Guthrie family. Nanos has also maintained publicly that the case remains active and has not become a cold case, despite the extended timeline.

Cross’s comments were not limited to detective experience levels. He also raised concerns about the department’s decision to allow Nancy Guthrie’s family control over the crime scene relatively early in the investigation, according to reporting from The Daily Beast, and pointed to broader coordination problems between local and federal investigators. A separate Wall Street Journal examination of the investigation reported additional concerns involving coordination between local and federal authorities and the handling of evidence during the case, adding to the broader scrutiny surrounding the department’s response.

Nancy Guthrie, 84, was last seen by family on January 31 at her home in Tucson’s Catalina Foothills neighborhood and was reported missing the following day. The FBI has said an armed individual appeared to tamper with her doorbell camera around the time of her disappearance, and blood found at her home has been confirmed to belong to her. The case is being investigated as a kidnapping, with two ransom notes tied to the disappearance made public in late July. No suspect has been publicly named, and Guthrie has not been found more than six and a half months after she vanished.

Cross was careful to frame his criticism around staffing and process decisions rather than claiming that different personnel choices would necessarily have solved the case. His allegations, however, add to a broader pattern of scrutiny surrounding the Pima County Sheriff’s Department’s handling of one of the most closely watched missing-person investigations in the country, at a moment when the Guthrie family continues to wait for answers about Nancy’s whereabouts.

Neither the Pima County Sheriff’s Department nor Sheriff Nanos has issued a detailed, on-the-record response specifically addressing Cross’s claims regarding the earlier detective transfers or the characterization of the commander involved in that decision.

This article was written by

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