(Bloomberg) -- One of Andrew Left’s close associates settled US Securities and Exchange Commission claims about his role in preparing tweets that misled investors, potentially raising legal pressure on the famed short seller.

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Ryan Choi’s settlement, disclosed Tuesday in court documents, is the latest twist in US authorities’ ongoing civil and criminal cases against Left and his Citron Research. The short seller is widely known on Wall Street for his damning reports about companies he claimed — often correctly — were overpriced by the markets.

Choi, 35, agreed to return $1.6 million he illegally made by trading around Left’s tweets about two target companies that he helped research, according to the filing in federal court in Los Angeles. Choi also agreed to pay a civil penalty of $115,231, the SEC said.

While Choi lacked Left’s fame, he helped Left found Citron Capital in 2018 and was well aware that Left’s tweets and reports could move stock within minutes of being published, the SEC said in a suit filed earlier Tuesday. The regulator and the US Justice Department accused Left in July of making millions of dollars off similar trading activity, shaking up the short selling industry.

At the center of the ongoing cases against Left is the government’s claim that he repeatedly misled investors by failing to make public his own trading intentions around his tweets and reports about dozens of companies.

Left has pleaded not guilty in the criminal case and has moved to dismiss the SEC suit. He argues authorities are attempting to enforce a rule that doesn’t exist, and that short sellers should not be required to reveal their own trading plans.

“The allegations against Mr. Choi do not pass the smell test,” Left’s lawyer, James Spertus, said in a statement, adding that he believes the SEC’s theory of market manipulation “is defective on its face.”

A lawyer for Choi didn’t immediately return a call and email seeking comment. As part of the agreement, Choi is not formally admitting or denying the allegations in the complaint. But the deal does prohibit him from publicly denying the allegations or suggesting the claims are not factual.

Spertus said it was a “hallmark of a coerced settlement” that Choi would be allowed to resolve the claims without admitting them.