Three investors in the blank-check firm working to take former president Donald Trump’s media company public, including a former member of the firm’s board, were charged with using insider information to make $22 million in illegal profits, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
Bruce Garelick, Gerald Shvartsman and Michael Shvartsman were arrested in south Florida on Thursday morning on multiple counts of securities fraud, officials with the Southern District of New York said in a statement. The Securities and Exchange Commission separately charged the men with insider trading.
The men made millions in illegal trades after being told in September 2021 that the firm, Digital World Acquisition, had plans to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Trump’s social network Truth Social, but before the news was publicly announced the next month.
The stock price skyrocketed after the announcement, to a high of $175 a share, and the men sold their shares for a significant profit. Digital World’s shares have since plunged to about $12 a share. Digital World and Trump Media have yet to merge because of ongoing federal investigations.
Neither Trump nor Trump Media are named in the indictment, which was unsealed in Manhattan federal court.
Grant Smith, an attorney representing the Shvartsman brothers, declined to comment. Executives for Digital World and Trump Media, and a lawyer believed to be representing Garelick, did not respond to requests for comment.
The charges could further cloud the prospects of Digital World’s deal to merge with Trump Media, which has been frozen for months amid an SEC investigation, SEC filings show.
Digital World could be forced to liquidate and return $300 million to investors if it does not finalize the merger by Sept. 8, the filings show. Attempts to extend that deadline via shareholder vote have been unsuccessful.
The Trump company launched Truth Social after Trump was suspended from Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, and it has become his main venue for online publishing in the run-up to the 2024 presidential campaign.
It’s unclear whether other charges could arise from the probes by the SEC or the U.S. attorney’s office. Digital World had noted investigations by both agencies in SEC filings in recent months.
Trump and congressional Republicans have accused the financial regulator of stalling the merger due to political bias.
A former Trump Media executive, Will Wilkerson, has shared internal documents with the SEC and the SDNY as part of a whistleblower case alleging other wrongdoing, including that the deal relied on “fraudulent misrepresentations … in violation of federal securities laws.”
“We’re working quickly to investigate and prosecute anyone who corrupts our financial markets,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement Thursday. “And we’ll keep at it as long as it takes.”
Digital World and other special purpose acquisition companies, known as SPACs, raise money from investors for the purpose of finding and merging with a company they intend to take public.
Garelick, then the chief strategy officer of the Miami private equity firm Rocket One Capital, had invested in Digital World when it was launched, landing him a seat on the company’s board, federal prosecutors said.
When he was appointed as a director in September 2021, Garelick learned that Digital World’s target was Trump Media, then a heavily hyped financial prospect due to its connection to Trump’s post-presidential business ambitions.
Garelick, who signed nondisclosure agreements promising not to share the information, nevertheless allegedly passed the plan to his boss, Rocket One’s chief executive Michael Shvartsman. Shvartsman then shared it with his brother, Gerald, the owner of a furniture supply store, SEC officials said.
The men bought millions of dollars of Digital World shares before the merger announcement. They also shared the information with friends on a trip to Las Vegas, with Michael Shvartsman’s neighbors, and with Gerald Shvartsman’s furniture-store employees, SDNY prosecutors said.
Garelick resigned from the board last June after the company’s other directors received subpoenas related to the merger deal from federal prosecutors, SEC filings show.
Garelick and Michael Shvartsman were charged with six counts of securities fraud, and Gerald Shvartsman with four counts, each of which carries maximum sentences of up to 25 years in prison. They also faces conspiracy charges.
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