The British billionaire proprietor of Tottenham Hotspur, Joe Lewis, has been indicted for orchestrating a "brazen" insider buying and selling scheme, the US legal professional in Manhattan has stated.

In a video posted on messaging platform X, previously generally known as Twitter, Damian Williams stated: "Today I'm asserting that my workplace, the southern district of New York has indicted Joe Lewis, the British billionaire, for orchestrating a brazen insider buying and selling scheme.

"We allege that for years Joe Lewis abused access to corporate board rooms and repeatedly provided inside information to his romantic partners, his personal assistants, his pilots and his friends.

"Those people then traded on that inside data and made hundreds of thousands of {dollars} on the inventory market. Thanks to Lewis these bets have been a positive factor.

"None of this was needed. Joe Lewis is a rich man, however as we allege he used insider data to compensate his workers, or to bathe presents on his pals and lovers.

"That's classic corporate corruption. It's cheating and it's against the law."

Mr Lewis's lawyer, David Zornow, stated the federal government had "made an egregious error in judgment in charging Mr Lewis, an 86-year-old man of impeccable integrity and prodigious accomplishment".

He added that Mr Lewis had come to the US voluntarily to reply the "ill-conceived" costs which might be "defended vigorously in court".

Joe Lewis owns the Tavistock Group, with greater than 200 belongings throughout 13 international locations, by way of which he owns Tottenham Hotspur and the UK pub operator Mitchells & Butlers. Forbes places his wealth at £4.65bn.

He purchased a controlling stake within the premier league membership from Alan Sugar for £22m in 2001.

He now lives within the Bahamas, a far cry from his humble beginnings in London's East End.

Joe Lewis was born to a Jewish household above a pub in Roman Road, Bow. He left faculty at 15 to assist run his father's West End catering enterprise, Tavistock Banqueting. he bought the enterprise in 1979, forming the idea of his preliminary fortune, earlier than transferring into foreign money buying and selling.

In 1992, he allegedly teamed up with American billionaire George Soros to guess on the pound crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (EERM).

Black Wednesday, because it turned recognized, sank sterling and compelled the British authorities to withdraw the pound from the EERM.