Federal prosecutors charge billionaire with insider trading

British billionaire Joe Lewis, the owner of the Tottenham Hotspur soccer club in London, has been charged with insider trading in the U.S. 

Federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment in New York that the 86-year-old passed on inside information from companies in which he was an investor to friends, including his personal pilots, assistants and romantic partners. Lewis, the founder of investment firm the Tavistock Group, faces more than a dozen charges, including securities fraud. 

“None of this was necessary, Joe Lewis was a wealthy man,” Damian Williams, U.S. 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.”

Prosecutors allege he was engaged in insider trading for eight years, passing on material nonpublic information about several companies, including Solid Biosciences, Australian Agricultural Co. and Mirati Therapeutics, in which Tavistock had an interest. In some instances, Lewis allegedly loaned money to those he tipped, authorities say. 

A call and email to Tavistock’s media team after hours weren’t immediately returned.

Lewis, who has a net worth of $6.5 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is the latest figure to be swept up in an insider trading crackdown led by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Last month, prosecutors announced criminal charges against 10 people in four separate cases, including investors in a special acquisition company poised to take Donald Trump’s fledgling media company public.

But Lewis is the highest-profile investor the office has prosecuted for insider trading this year. The Bahamas-based businessman’s firm has stakes in more than 200 businesses, with investments across real estate, hotels and sports, in 13 countries.