UK billionaire Joe Lewis, owner of Tottenham soccer team, charged with insider trading in US

NEW YORK: 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, US 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 US 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 US “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