Gerald Shvartsman

Florida venture capitalist Michael Shvartsman and his brother Gerald Shvartsman pleaded guilty on Wednesday to participating in an insider trading scheme linked to the blockbuster deal that brought former President Donald Trump’s social media business public. Each of the brothers pleaded guilty in New York to one count of securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to federal prosecutors. The two brothers were arrested in June and charged with illegally trading on nonpublic knowledge of a shell company’s secret plan to buy Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of struggling social network Truth Social. The indictment accused the brothers and a third individual, Bruce Garelick, of together making more than $22 million in October 2021 by trading on their inside knowledge of the deal. he Shvartsman brothers and Garelick, a then a director on Digital World’s board of, tipped off friends and colleagues about the impending deal, allowing them to buy securities in the SPAC before the Trump Media deal became public. The defendants passed the secret information about the impending Trump Media deal to friends, on a trip to Las Vegas, to Michael Shvartsman’s neighbors and to Gerald Shvartsman’e employees at a furniture supply store.