Joe Lewis, the British billionaire whose family owns the Tottenham Hotspur soccer club, will avoid jail for insider trading, after a federal judge in Manhattan agreed Thursday to sentence the 87-year-old to a fine of $1,000. $5 million and three years of probation.
Lewis pleaded guilty to fraud charges in January following an investigation that found he had passed stock tips to friends, private pilots and a girlfriend. The recipients earned more than half a million dollars by trading with non-public information, to which Lewis had had access through his participation in several boards of directors, according to the prosecution.
His crimes carried a sentence of up to two years in prison, but probation officers had advised against imprisoning Lewis, in part because of his advanced age.
Joe Lewis, owner of Lago Escondido, pleads guilty to influence peddling
Addressing the court on Thursday, Lewis, visibly shaken and wearing an eyepatch, said he had “made a terrible mistake”. “I have broken the law. I am ashamed, sorry and I consider myself responsible,” he added.
In their sentencing recommendation to the judge, US prosecutors – who alleged that the tips amounted to gifts and cash payments by Lewis – had acknowledged that “unlike many defendants who engage in insider trading, [su] “The behavior was not motivated by personal gain,” since the billionaire did not negotiate with the information in question himself.
They added that given Lewis’s deteriorating health, the fact that he “has otherwise led a law-abiding life” and his voluntary surrender to US authorities, meant that the suggested sentence would be “heavier than the necessary” in this case.
Lewis, a British citizen living in the Bahamas, previously described his crimes as motivated by “childish arrogance and exuberance”, and said the saga was a “self-inflicted humiliation” that he would have to live with “for the rest of my days”.
After handing down the sentence, Judge Jessica Clarke declared that, although Lewis’s “crime was undoubtedly serious,” he deserved leniency because “he confronted these charges head-on rather than engaging in what could have been a long fight for justice.” extradition”. His life “would be in grave danger if he were imprisoned,” he added.
Born in 1937 to an immigrant family in an east London pub, Lewis left school as a teenager and joined his father’s catering business. He initially found success with a chain of theme restaurants before moving from the United Kingdom in 1979 to the Bahamas.
Joe Lewis, the owner of Lago Escondido, surrenders to US Justice.
He later built a reputation in the financial markets for his large speculative currency trades, including a profitable bet against the pound sterling before Black Wednesday 1992, when Britain abandoned the European exchange rate mechanism.
After achieving success as a property investor, Lewis went on to own a majority stake in the Tottenham Hotspur football club for more than two decades. That stake is currently owned by a trust in the name of his family.
The Premier League team, which has attracted investor interest in recent years, previously described the allegations against Lewis as “unrelated to the club”.
Lewis is also the founder of Tavistock Group, which owns assets ranging from investments in more than 200 companies to real estate, agriculture and works of art by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Lucian Freud.
As part of his agreement with prosecutors, Lewis will also be forced to resign from his positions on the boards of directors of publicly traded companies in the US. He will also have to pay a fine of $ 1.6 million to resolve a case involving the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Prosecutors agreed to let Lewis return to the Bahamas on Thursday night, leaving his yacht as collateral.
