Billionaire Joe Lewis, whose family trust owns Tottenham Hotspur football club, was fined $5m (£4m) Thursday, but will avoid prison after pleading guilty to insider trading. This is the story of how his plan to enrich his lovers, friends, and employees unravelled. The pilot had just touched down in Orlando when he texted a friend with a hot tip: “Boss is helping us out.”
The “boss” he was referring to was British tycoon Joe Lewis, and the helping hand was a loan of half a million dollars. And it came with juicy stock advice: buy shares in a pharmaceutical company that was about to announce positive results for a new cancer drug.
Two weeks later, the pilot texted again, noting “the Boss has inside info” and “knows the outcome”.
He was right – the company’s stock price jumped more than 16%. The pilot cashed out and repaid the “Boss”.
But there was one big hitch. The whole scheme was illegal. One of Britain’s richest men, the 87-year-old Lewis pleaded guilty to insider trading as part of an agreement with prosecutors in January. At a hearing in Manhattan on Thursday, he was fined $5m (£4m) and sentenced to three years of probation, avoiding jail time. Lewis arrived in court wearing an eye patch.
Federal guidelines in the case called for a sentence of between 18 months and two years in prison, but both defence and prosecutors urged leniency, citing Lewis’ guilty plea, co-operation with authorities and poor health.
Judge Jessica Clarke said his crimes were “serious” and “strike at the integrity of our markets” but said his circumstances did not warrant prison.
In court, Lewis referred to his childhood in London during the Blitz and said: “At an early age, I learned how precious life is. I made a terrible mistake. I broke the law. I am ashamed, sorry, and I hold myself accountable.”
As part of the plea deal, one of Lewis’ companies, Broad Bay Ltd, also pleaded guilty to securities fraud and was fined $44m (£34.8m).
A substantial part of his fraudulent activity, according to an indictment, was not meant to pad his estimated worth of $6.2bn (£4.9bn).
Instead, the incident with his pilot Patrick O’Connor was just one of a number of times that he passed along insider information about his companies to his private pilots, friends, personal assistants and romantic partners, in order to enrich his close associates.
Source: BBC
In other news – Greens demand more affordable housing at local election campaign launch
The Greens have kicked off their local election campaign with a demand for more affordable homes. Speaking in Bristol, co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsey said a vote for Green councillors on 2 May was one for “hope and for action”.
They said the country was facing an “acute housing crisis”, both of supply “but also a crisis of housing quality”. The party is aiming to build on its best-ever local election results achieved last year. Read more
