87 year-old Joe Lewis may spend less than 18 months in a US federal prison as a result of his recent guilty plea to passing inside information to his girlfriend and the pilots who fly his private jet.
Lewis is a British billionaire, a businessman who once owned the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in his native England. He was charged last year for tipping off members of his close circle off about information that would have an effect on the stock prices of four separate publicly-traded companies. The misconduct in question occurred began in 2019 and continued through 2021.
Rather than face trial, in January Lewis entered a plea agreement with the US attorney’s office in which he plead guilty to to counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy relating to securities fraud.
The US government, according to Bloomberg, opted for an unusually short sentence due to Lewis’s age and failing health, as well as his willingness to travel voluntarily to America to face the charges. Thus, prosecutors believe that Lewis will have been sufficiently punished by sitting in jail for less than a year and a half. Had Lewis opted to take the matter to trial, and been convicted, he would have faced a prison sentence of up to forty-five years.
Lewis’s fortune was made as the result of his activities at the Tavistock Group, an investment firm he founded. The Group holds stakes in 200 sports, finance, property, energy, and life-sciences companies, and has netted Lewis a fortune of more than £5 billion.
Initially, Lewis denied all charges levied against him last July, which totaled out at three conspiracy counts and sixteen securities fraud counts. An insider trading arrangement characterized by prosecutors as “brazen” allowed Lewis’s nearest and dearest to reap millions on sure-thing investments.
In a January statement, Lewis expressed embarrassment for his conduct and apologized to the court.
