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re: Greatest CON EVER; DOW DUMPING TRUMP- Stock Plummets AGAIN & Going Lower
INSIDER TRADING in TRUMP MEDIA; Florida Brothers Plead GUILTY In Trump Media Insider Trading Case - Could Face 20 Years in Prison
Stock in TRUMPs' Social Media Company Loses FIFTH of Its Value -Media Stock Plunges After Posting a BIG LOSS For 2023
PLUS- TRUMP Sues Ex-Apprentice Contestants Over Failings in Setting Up Truth Social;
TRUMP seeks to block Wesley Moss and Andrew Litinsky from receiving Trump Media stock worth over $400MIL
The Guardian 4 APR 2024
Brothers Michael and Gerald Shvartsman pleaded guilty to insider trading after they together made more than $22 million by making illegal trades using non-public knowledge that Digital World Acquisition Corp was merging with Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of TRUMPs' Social Media Platform Truth Social.
Two Florida men in TRUMPs' HOME STATE, pleaded guilty to insider trading charges Wednesday after admitting they illegally raked in $22 million by purchasing securities in a company before it was announced that the same firm was going to bring Donald Trump's media business public.
Michael Shvartsman, 53, and his brother Gerald Shvartsman, 46, both pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud before the U.Ssd. District Court judge in Manhattan.
Each count carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison, according to the Department of Justice.
Michael Shvartsman, the head of Miami-based venture capital firm Rocket One Capital, and his brother admitted to illegally trading on information they learned after signing confidentiality agreements with Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC) - the company that took Trump Media & Technology Group public.
DWAC is the parent company of the former president's Truth Social app.
'I’ve made a terrible mistake, Gerald Shvartsman said at the hearing Wednesday. 'I will pay for dearly the rest of my life,' he added.
Michael Shvartsman also admitted to the judge that he knew the trades were illegal and wrong.
Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, celebrated the ruling in a press release following the investors' guilty pleas.
'Michael and Gerald Shvartsman admitted in court that they received confidential, inside information about an upcoming merger between DWAC and Trump Media and used that information to make profitable, but illegal, open-market trades.'
'Insider trading is cheating, plain and simple, and today’s convictions should remind anyone who may be tempted to corrupt the integrity of the stock market that it will earn them a ticket to prison,' Williams said.
According to the DOJ, the Shvartsman received critical confidential information on DWAC's deal to take Trump Media public, like when the deal would be publicly announced, and then purchased millions of dollars worth of stock in the company before the merger.
After hearing the pleas, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman scheduled the sentencing hearing for July 17.
Both of the Shvartsman brothers will remain free on bail until their sentencing.
TRUMP Seeks to BLOCK Ex-Apprentice Contestants From Receiving Trump Media Stock Worth Over $400MIL
Donald Trump sued two former contestants on The Apprentice, his hit NBC reality show, who became co-founders of Trump Media and Technology Group, claiming they failed to set up the venture properly and should not get promised stock worth more than $400m.
Trump fronted The Apprentice, in which contestants competed for a job at the Trump Organization, from 2004 to 2015. The show coined Trump’s catchphrase, “You’re fired!”, though he ended up fired himself, after entering Republican presidential politics and making racist comments about Mexicans.
Wesley Moss and Andrew Litinsky met as Apprentice contestants in 2004. In 2021, after Trump was thrown off major social media platforms for inciting the January 6 Capitol attack, as he sought to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, the two men pitched Trump on starting his own platform, which became Truth Social.
“This was a phenomenal opportunity for Moss and Litinsky,” said the suit filed by Trump in Florida in late March and first reported by Bloomberg News on Tuesday.
Though the two men were “riding President Trump’s coattails”, the suit said, “all [they] needed to do was diligently, faithfully and loyally execute on a short-term plan: get TMTG’s corporate governance established, get Truth Social ready to launch, and find a suitable special purpose acquisition company to take the new company public and access capital to advance TMTG’s business plan”.
Trump Media’s path to market was anything but smooth – including, as the Guardian revealed on Wednesday, a 2022 rescue through emergency loans in part provided by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation.
Last week, Trump Media finally debuted as a publicly traded stock, amid predictions it could boost Trump’s worth at a time of considerable financial stress, as he runs for president while fighting 88 criminal charges and paying multimillion-dollar bonds in civil cases.
As Bloomberg put it, however, Trump Media has proved to be a “hot but flailing meme stock”, valued in the billions but widely seen as extremely unstable. On Monday, after Trump Media was revealed to have lost $58.2m last year, the value of Trump’s stake in the company dropped by $1bn.
Trump’s lawsuit said Moss and Litinsky were due to receive 8.6m shares, which at Tuesday’s closing price would be worth about $444m.
But, the suit said, they “failed spectacularly at every turn” in setting up Trump Media, failing to establish corporate governance and making “a series of reckless and wasteful decisions” that damaged merger plans and put the project “on ice” for more than a year and a half.
Once Moss and Litinsky left the company, the suit said, they attempted to thwart its plans, including by filing their own lawsuit in Delaware, seeking their promised stake.
That suit was filed in February. In a hearing in the case on Monday, Bloomberg reported, the judge, Sam Glass**** III, professed himself “gobsmacked” to learn Trump had filed suit in Florida rather than make a counterclaim in Delaware.
Judge Sam Glass**** III said he would consider sanctions against Trump.
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Report finds sketchy money with Russia ties helped Trump Media stay afloat
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