Trump Media insider trading trial begins with co-founder testifying, 'I've never been paid at all'

• The New York federal criminal trial of Bruce Garelick, who is accused of insider trading in shares of a shell company ahead of its announcement of a plan to merge with Trump Media, began Tuesday.
• The trial is taking place blocks from where former President Donald Trump is on trial in a case related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
• Andy Litinsky, who co-founded Trump Media, was the first witness at Garelick's trial.

The federal criminal trial of a man accused of insider trading in shares of a shell company ahead of its announcement of a plan to merge with Trump Media began Tuesday, just blocks from where former President Donald Trump was sitting at his criminal trial in a case related to a hush money payment.

The first witness in the insider trading case against Bruce Garelick was Andy Litinsky, a co-founder of Trump Media. Litinsky himself is involved in complicated civil litigation against Trump in several jurisdictions, over how many shares he is owed in Trump's eponymous social media company.

"It's a long story," Litinsky sighed on the stand in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Garelick has decided to take his chances with a jury after his two co-defendants, the brothers Michael Shvartsman and Gerald Shvartsman, pleaded guilty on April 3 to insider trading charges in the case.

Garelick is accused of sharing non-public material information about the merger plans by the shell company, Digital World Acquisition Corp., with his boss, the Florida venture capitalist Michael Shvartsman and Gerald in 2021.

All three men were accused of buying up DWAC stock ahead of the merger announcement based on non-public information, then selling the shares after the price soared on the heels of an announcement of the