GameStop Investor Withdraws Lawsuit Accusing Roaring Kitty of Pump and Dump Fraud

Keith Gill — the meme-stock influencer known as “Roaring Kitty” and “DeepF—Value” who amassed millions on X and Reddit for GameStop — briefly faced a lawsuit alleging he knowingly defrauded his loyal fans to make millions of dollars in profits. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed by plaintiff Martin Radev on July 1.

The proposed class action lawsuit was filed Friday by Radev, a GameStop investor who accused Gill of a “pump-and-dump scheme” that allegedly artificially inflated the price of GameStop securities between May 13 and June 13. As a result, thousands of investors were likely harmed, including Gill’s supporters, Radev alleged in the complaint, while speculating on the size of the class. On Monday, Radev asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit without prejudice.

Radev’s complaint follows reports that E-Trade was considering banning Gill for suspected stock manipulation, but was reportedly wary of a backlash from Gill’s so-called meme stock army. According to the aggrieved investor, Gill’s plan allegedly worked like this:

“Unknown to investors,” Gill “quietly bought a large number of GameStop call options on E-Trade at relatively low prices.” He later “rekindled the meme stock movement” he first sparked in 2021 by posting a meme on May 12 of a gamer in a suit suddenly sitting down in a chair. That and a subsequent meme post — as well as sharing allegedly misleading insights about his GameStop holdings — triggered a pair of spikes in trading that lifted the value of GameStop securities. Then, on June 13, Gill “quietly sold” or “divested” all “120,000 of his GameStop call options for a large profit,” and only later informed investors and “millions of followers” ​​that “his own stake in GameStop stock had increased by more than 4 million shares.”

Radev said Gill should have informed investors about his involvement a month earlier as they allegedly “suffered significant losses and damages” due to artificially inflated prices.

Because Gill is an “American financial analyst and investor, and a former financial analyst for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company,” Radev claimed Gill “also had actual knowledge of the misleading nature of the information he was disseminating and/or spreading,” or he allegedly “acted in reckless disregard of the truthful information known to him at the time” when his online posts drove GameStop shares up as much as 179 percent.

Radev claimed that Gill was using his X account “as a ploy to deceive and trick investors.” Because Gill did not disclose his large purchase of call options before the meme storm, Gill allegedly concealed “what would have been his obvious intention to drive up the price of GameStop securities for his own benefit,” Radev claimed. That information would have discouraged sophisticated investors from buying call options during Gill’s alleged scheme, Radev argued.

In seeking to strip Gill of all his ill-gotten gains, Radev asked the jury to find that Gill “disseminated and spread materially false and misleading information” “for the purpose of inducing” Radev and others to buy GameStop securities. He also seeks damages for all GameStop investors who bought securities at allegedly unlawfully inflated prices during the month Gill posted the meme. However, the lawsuit was already closed before any other plaintiffs in the proposed class could join.

Neither Gill nor Radev’s legal team immediately responded to Ars’ request for comment.

This story has been updated to reflect the voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit.