Donald Trump pardons former Tottenham Hotspur owner Joe Lewis

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Donald Trump has pardoned 88-year-old British billionaire Joe Louis, former owner of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, who pleaded guilty to insider trading in the US last year.

A White House official said Thursday that Lewis “requested a pardon so he can receive medical treatment and visit his grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the United States.”

The official added that Lewis, a British citizen living in the Bahamas, “admitted that he made a grave mistake, did not oppose his extradition in this case, and paid a fine of $5 million.”

“I’m glad this is all behind me now, and I can enjoy retirement and watch my family and extended family continue to build our business on the foundation of quality and the pursuit of excellence that has become our trademark,” Lewis said.

Lewis was indicted in New York in 2023 after an investigation found he had passed stock tips to friends, private pilots and his girlfriend. Prosecutors alleged that the recipients of his advice earned more than half a million dollars by trading on non-public information, which Lewis was privy to through his seats on various corporate boards.

However, a federal judge last year decided not to jail a remorseful Lewis, in part because of his advanced age.

This move is the latest in a series of high-level pardons issued by the US president. Last month, he pardoned Changpeng Zhao, founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who pleaded guilty to money laundering charges. Trump also commuted the sentence of former Republican Congressman Jorge Santos, who was convicted of wire fraud and identity theft.

The Lewis family holds a controlling stake in ENEC, the entity that owns Tottenham Hotspur, and recently oversaw a change to the board of directors at the Premier League club. Daniel Levy, Tottenham’s boss for nearly 25 years, left in September and was replaced by Peter Charrington, an ENEC board member and former private banker.

People close to the family said at the time that the changes were part of a wider drive to achieve more success on the pitch.

Former Arsenal chief executive Vinay Venkatesham joined Tottenham in April, while the Lewis family pumped £100m into the club in October.

Lewis transferred his stake in Enec to a family trust in 2022. Although he is not a beneficiary of the trust, other members of his family are.

Born to an immigrant family above a pub in east London in 1937, Lewis left school as a teenager and joined his father’s catering company. He had early success with a series of themed restaurants before moving from the UK to the Bahamas in 1979.

He continued to build his reputation in the financial markets through massive currency speculation, including a profitable bet against the pound before Black Wednesday in 1992, when Britain exited the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

“Over the course of his long business career, Joe has been a visionary, creating businesses around the world that are now carried on by multiple generations of his family. That’s why there is so much more to the Joe Louis story than this one event,” a person close to the Lewis family said Thursday.