by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, April 30 – As the third of four insider trading prosecutions announced on June 29, 2023 by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michael Shvartsman, Gerald Shvartsman, and Bruce Garelick were charged with making more than $22 million dollars in illegal profits by trading in securities of Digital World Acquisition Corporation based on MNPI about DWAC’s planned but not yet public business combination with a media company founded by former President Donald J. Trump.
On July 5, the case was assigned - wheeled out - to Judge Lewis J. Liman.
Inner City Press was there on July 20 and live tweeted, thread
On December 29 as part of omnibus pre-trial motions Shvartsman filed copies of DHS reports of investigation, including audio recordings of Shvartsman saying he would open an LLC in Belize which would buy assets... and ultimately provided funding for the 'Truth Social' media platform. It also names the agents who brought the arrested defendants to the Wilke D. Ferguson Jr. Federal Courthouse and the Marshals...
Late on March 15 Shvartsman through counsel wrote to Judge Liman alleging that the US used a Lawyer Informant to record him. Counsel identified the Zoom account used: John [at] lighthousetrust [dot] ch. A Google search of that shows a Lighthouse Trust General Counsel named John Ivsan at Linhart Seuss Ivsan LLP
More on X for Subscribers here & Substack here
On April 29, jury selection began but did not end, by 6 pm. Of 34 prospective jurors in the courtroom at 5 pm, each was summoned into the robing room for questioning, seemingly with the defendant present. Three were excused at 6 pm and the rest told to return, but not to read anything about the case.
Then this request to start anew: "during today’s voir dire one prospective juror openly reported in front of the venire that she learned from the news that “[t]here are two people pleading guilty” in connection with this case. Upon the Court’s request to speak up, the juror again stated—adding detail—that “[t]here are two people pleading guilty and [Mr. Garelick] is the third person.” Voir dire continued over Mr. Garelick’s objection." Letter on Patreon here.
On April 30, after Judge Liman dismissed some but not all of the venire, the trial began. At day's end one of Garelick's lawyers, pushed for a proffer of the defense says, named three other possible tippee, one of whom he said would be in "smithereens" on the witness stand, on May 1.
Watch this site.
This case is US v. Shvartsman, et al., 23-cr-307 (Liman)
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