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Jan 24, 2024 · UK billionaire Joe Lewis, whose family trust owns Tottenham Hotspur football club, has pleaded guilty to insider trading in a US court. Lewis, 86, was accused of passing on information about his ...
Feb 26, 2024 · Patrick O'Connor, the personal pilot of billionaire investor Joseph Lewis, admitted to trading on non-public information from Lewis and his companies. Lewis, who was previously convicted of insider trading, also pled guilty to securities fraud charges in January 2024.
- Overview
- From London to the Bahamas
British billionaire Joe Lewis pleaded guilty to U.S. insider trading charges on Wednesday after being accused last year of a scheme that prosecutors said was designed to enrich friends and associates and apologized to a judge for his conduct.
Lewis, 86, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and two counts of securities fraud under an agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. As part of the plea deal, Lewis can appeal if the judge in the case sentences him to prison time, his lawyer David Zornow said.
Sentencing was scheduled for March 28.
Lewis, whose family trust controls a majority of the Tottenham Hotspur soccer team, was charged in July 2023 with passing inside information on his portfolio companies to two of his private pilots as well as friends, personal assistants and romantic partners, enabling them, according to prosecutors, to reap millions of dollars of profit.
Addressing U.S. District Judge Jessica Clarke during a hearing on Wednesday, Lewis said he knew at the time that what he was doing was wrong.
“I am so embarrassed and I apologize to the court for my conduct,” said Lewis, who in July had entered a plea of not guilty.
Lewis, who got his start in business after taking over a pub his father owned in London’s rough-and-tumble East End, is now worth an estimated $6.2 billion, according to Forbes. He sold the business, founded the investment firm Tavistock Group, and moved to the Bahamas, which is known for its low tax rates.
Lewis once split his time between the Bahamas, a luxury estate in Florida and property in Argentina. He has been free on $300 million bond secured by his yacht, named the Aviva, and private aircraft.
The terms of his bail restrict Lewis from traveling outside the United States, boarding his yacht or traveling in his personal aircraft unless it was to attend a court hearing. Lewis is limited to traveling between New York, Florida and Georgia, where he owns property.
His sentencing was set for the same day that another disgraced Bahamas billionaire, FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried, is scheduled to be sentenced over his conviction on charges of stealing billions of dollars from customers. Bankman-Fried’s sentencing is in the morning and Lewis’ in the afternoon, both in the same courthouse.
According to its website, Lewis’ Tavistock is an investor in the Bahamas waterfront luxury real estate development Albany, where Bankman-Fried lived and was arrested in 2022.
Prosecutors have said Lewis gleaned inside information about four companies in which he had invested through his hedge fund and tipped friends and associates between 2019 and 2021.
Jul 26, 2023 · July 26, 2023. Federal prosecutors charged Joseph C. Lewis, the British billionaire who owns the Tottenham Hotspur English soccer club, with insider trading, accusing him of illegally funneling ...
Apr 4, 2024 · A U.S. judge ordered British billionaire Joe Lewis on Thursday to pay a $5 million fine and serve three years of probation for sharing illegal stock tips, allowing an investment firm's 87-year-old ...
- Jody Godoy
Jul 25, 2023 · CNN —. British billionaire and owner of the Tottenham Hotspur football club Joe Lewis was indicted on insider trading charges by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District ...
Jan 24, 2024 · 1 of 11 | . Joe Lewis leaves Manhattan Federal court, Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, in New York. Lewis, the British billionaire whose family trust owns the Tottenham Hotspur soccer club, pleaded guilty in New York on Wednesday to insider trading charges alleging that he fed corporate secrets to romantic partners, personal assistants, friends and his pilots, earning them millions of dollars illegally.
