Prosecutors in Andrew Left's securities fraud trial say the prominent short-seller wasn't always working alone in the tweet-and-trade tango he's been accused of.
The Citron Research founder is accused of manipulating the market and deceiving retail investors with a plan that earned him more than $20 million.
Prosecutors said Left was working with hedge funds and sharing in some of their trading profits. They've accused him of concealing those relationships in order to "maintain the illusion of Citron's independence."
Eliza Goldberg, a chief compliance officer at Atom, a Texas-based hedge fund, testified in a Los Angeles federal court on Tuesday that Left was paid more than $2.6 million by the fund for providing trading recommendations.
Prosecutors, who say Left hid that work from retail investors, said some of those payments were made weeks before Left published a report criticizing another activist short seller's work with a hedge fund.
In August 2019, Harry Markopolos, the famous whistleblower of the Bernie Madoff scandal, issued a short report on General Electric, accusing it of fraud "bigger than Enron."
Left issued a rebuttal tweet and report, calling Markopolos' credibility into question.
"As noted in the disclaimer on his site, Harry is being paid a % of profits from an unnamed hedge fund that is short GE," Left wrote in the report. "No credible hedge fund or short seller would ever do this."
Left's report also said regarding his own activity, that Citron had never...
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