Current:Home > ScamsTottenham owner Joe Lewis charged by feds with insider trading-InfoLens
Tottenham owner Joe Lewis charged by feds with insider trading
View Date:2024-12-23 15:37:21
British billionaire and Tottenham soccer team owner Joe Lewis has been indicted on charges of slipping confidential stock tips to his romantic partners, private pilots and other pals, U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday.
Lewis exploited his entrée to various corporations to reap lucrative secrets, passed them on to people in his own inner circle and prompted them to trade on the knowledge, prosecutors said. They said the stock transactions made millions of dollars for Lewis and his cronies.
"As we allege, he used insider information as a way to compensate his employees and shower gifts on his friends and lovers," Manhattan-based U.S. attorney Damian Williams said in a Twitter video announcing the insider trading case. "It's cheating, and it's against the law."
David M. Zornow, an attorney for Lewis, said his client had come to the U.S. "to answer these ill-conceived charges" and would fight them vigorously.
"The government has made an egregious error in judgment in charging Mr. Lewis, an 86-year-old man of impeccable integrity and prodigious accomplishment," Zornow said in a statement. The charges include securities fraud and conspiracy.
With a fortune that Forbes estimates at $6.1 billion, Lewis has investments that span from real estate to biotechnology, energy to agriculture — and, of course, sports. He bought Tottenham, one of England's most storied soccer clubs, in 2001.
Lewis' Tavistock Group has stakes in more than 200 companies around the world, according to its website, and his art collection boasts works by Picasso, Matisse, Degas and more. His business connections include Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Justin Timberlake, with whom he built a Bahamian oceanside resort that opened in 2010.
According to the indictment, Lewis' investments in various companies gave him control of board seats, where he placed associates who let him know what they learned behind the scenes. Prosecutors say Lewis improperly doled out that confidential information between 2019 and 2021 to his chosen recipients and urged them to profit on it.
At one point, according to the indictment, he even loaned his two private pilots $500,000 apiece to buy stock in a cancer-drug company that he knew had gotten — but not yet publicly disclosed — encouraging results from a clinical trial.
"Boss is helping us out and told us to get ASAP," the pilot texted when advising a friend to buy the stock, too, according to the filing. In later texts telling the friend about the loan, the pilot reasoned that "the Boss has inside info" and "knows the outcome."
"Otherwise why would he make us invest," the pilot added.
Lewis also gave the tip to his girlfriend, his personal assistant, a poker buddy and a friend with whom he had a romance, the indictment said. After the company announced the clinical trial data, the stock gained nearly 17% in a day, and Lewis' friends and employees all eventually sold at a profit. The pilots repaid the loans, at Lewis' request, according to the indictment.
Another time, according to the filing, Lewis gleaned some closed-door information about a muscular dystrophy drug company in which he was a major investor. The information allegedly included a planned financial move and some clinical trial news.
Lewis' biotech hedge fund signed a confidentiality agreement that prohibited disclosing the information or trading on it. But, the indictment said, he told his girlfriend to buy the company's stock, then told the pilots the same as they flew the couple to Massachusetts from Seoul, where the two had been staying in the swanky Four Seasons Hotel.
The stock price shot up after the clinical trial results and the financial move were announced, and the girlfriend more than doubled her money, netting about $850,000, according to the indictment.
Yet another stock tip concerned a third pharmaceutical company, which Lewis was negotiating to acquire, the indictment said. It said Lewis advised his pilots and two personal assistants, who were working on his 322-foot mega-yacht, to buy in. And they did, before the merger plan became public and bumped up the stock price.
On still another occasion, the indictment said, Lewis learned through a hand-picked board member that an Australian agricultural firm was bracing for significant losses from a monsoon flood. He quickly urged the pilots to sell, according to the indictment, but their broker wasn't able to dump the shares before the company went public with the news.
"Just wish the Boss would have given us a little earlier heads up," one of the pilots lamented to the broker by email.
The indictment doesn't mention Tottenham, one of Lewis' most visible investments.
Under his ownership, the Premier League club has built a state-of-the-art stadium at an estimated cost of more than $1 billion. It features an NFL field below the moveable soccer pitch, as Tottenham has a long-term agreement with the NFL to stage regular-season games in London.
Spurs also was among teams involved in 2021 in the aborted plan for a European Super League, which prompted widespread protests from supporters.
A message seeking comment was sent to the team, which is on tour in Singapore.
- In:
- Premier League
- Billionaire
- Soccer
veryGood! (25)
Related
- Brianna LaPaglia Reacts to Rumors Dave Portnoy Paid Her $10 Million for a Zach Bryan Tell-All
- Jagged Edge's Brandon Casey “Should Be Dead” After Breaking Neck, Skull in Car Crash
- Stegosaurus fossil fetches nearly $45M, setting record for dinosaur auctions
- Rattlesnake 'mega-den' goes live on webcam that captures everyday lives of maligned reptile
- Kim Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian Team Up for SKIMS Collab With Dolce & Gabbana After Feud
- Powerball winning numbers for July 17 drawing: Jackpot at $75 million
- Scientists are ready to meet and greet a massive asteroid when it whizzes just past Earth
- Chanel West Coast Reveals Why She Really Left Ridiculousness
- The Daily Money: Mattel's 'Wicked' mistake
- Joe Jonas Details Writing His “Most Personal” Music Nearly a Year After Sophie Turner Split
Ranking
- Man charged with murder in fatal shooting of 2 workers at Chicago’s Navy Pier
- Milwaukee man arrested blocks from RNC carried an AK-47 pistol, authorities say
- John Deere drops diversity initiatives, pledges to no longer join 'social or cultural awareness parades'
- US reporter Evan Gershkovich appears in court in Russia for second hearing on espionage charges
- Fighting conspiracy theories with comedy? That’s what the Onion hopes after its purchase of Infowars
- Angelina Jolie Asks Brad Pitt to End the Fighting in Legal Battle
- Don't believe Texas is ready for the SEC? Nick Saban does. So should you.
- Alabama to execute Chicago man in shooting death of father of 7; inmate says he's innocent
Recommendation
-
My Chemical Romance will perform 'The Black Parade' in full during 2025 tour: See dates
-
Book excerpt: Godwin by Joseph O'Neill
-
Chicago Sky trade Marina Mabrey to Connecticut Sun for two players, draft picks
-
The Vampire Diaries' Torrey DeVitto Says She Quit Show Due to Paul Wesley Divorce
-
Why Dolly Parton Is a Fan of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's Little Love Affair
-
Crooks' warning before rampage: 'July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds'
-
Kourtney Kardashian Reveals When She’ll Stop Breastfeeding Baby Rocky
-
Caitlin Clark sets record for most assists in a WNBA game: Fever vs. Wings stats