British billionaire Joe Lewis, the owner of the Tottenham Hotspur soccer club in London, has been charged with insider trading in the US.
Federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment in New York that the 86-year-old passed on inside information from companies in which he was a large investor to friends, including his personal pilots, assistants, and romantic partners. Lewis, the founder of investment firm Tavistock Group, faces more than a dozen charges, including securities fraud.
“None of this was necessary, Joe Lewis was a wealthy man,” Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement Tuesday. “But as we allege he used inside information as a way to compensate his employees or shower gifts on his friends and lovers.”
Read the full story on Bloomberg here.