Tottenham Hotspur owner Joe Lewis pleads not guilty to insider trading charges in NYC, released on $300M bond [New York Daily News]

New York Daily News, The (NY)

Tottenham Hotspur football club owner Joe Lewis pleaded not guilty to insider trading charges in New York City on Wednesday and was released on a staggering $300 million bond secured by his yacht and private plane.

The British billionaire, 86, faces 19 counts related to securities fraud and conspiracy carrying a potential decades-long prison sentence for allegedly sharing confidential information from the boardroom with his lovers, assistants, friends, and pilots, reaping millions on the stock market from 2013 to 2021.

At his Manhattan federal court appearance, Lewis denied the charges. His bond was secured by his superyacht — the Aviva, which he can’t board — and his aircraft. He can’t travel outside the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the Northern District of Georgia, and Florida.

According to Forbes, the Tavistock Group owner is worth an estimated $6.1 billion. The feds say employees he placed on the board of directors at multiple companies owned by the international investment organization fed him confidential information, which he passed on to his inner circle.

Lewis was charged alongside his pilots, Patrick O’Connor and Bryan “Marty” Waugh, who also pleaded not guilty to seven securities fraud charges and one count of conspiracy. They were released on a $250,000 bond and are prohibited from leaving the country or flying planes.

Lewis, who’s also accused of hiding his ownership shares in a pharmaceutical company, allegedly lent O’Connor and Waugh, 64, of Lynchburg, Va., $500,000 each in 2019 to buy stocks in Mirati Therapeutics, an oncology company, before its favorable clinical results were publicly released.

“Boss is helping us out and told us to get ASAP,” O’Connor is quoted in the indictment texting a friend.

O’Connor, 66, of Preston Hollow, N.Y., assured his pal “the Boss has inside info” and “knows the outcome,” estimating they’d see a fat profit in six to eight weeks.

In a statement, Lewis’s lawyer, David Zornow, said the feds had made “an egregious error” in charging Lewis, “an 86-year-old man of impeccable integrity and prodigious accomplishment.”

“Mr. Lewis has come to the U.S. voluntarily to answer these ill-conceived charges, and we will defend him vigorously in court,” Zornow said.

Lawyers for O’Connor and Waugh did not return calls seeking comment.

Lewis, his ex, Carolyn Carter, who is not criminally charged, O’Connor and Waugh also face civil charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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