: Billionaire Tottenham Hotspur mogul Joe Lewis has avoided prison in an insider trading case, with a New York judge on Thursday instead giving him three years’ probation and a $5 million fine.
Lewis, who was visibly emotional at times, cut a frail figure in the courtroom, dressed in a grey suit with an eyepatch over his left eye. Lewis furnished employees, including his private pilots, and lovers with insider information for years in a “brazen” scheme between 2013 and 2021 that raked in millions of dollars.
Lewis is reported to be one of Britain’s richest men with a fortune that Forbes puts at $6.2 billion, building his reputation as a currency speculator in the 1980s and early 1990s. He was joined in court by his son and granddaughter, who wrote a letter to the judge pleading for leniency.