U.S. charges U.K. owner of soccer team Tottenham with insider trading

• "Lewis is a wealthy man, but as we allege, he used insider information as a way to compensate his employees or to shower gifts on his friends and lovers," said Manhattan-based U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in an online video post.

By the numbers: The Bahamas-based founder of investment firm Tavistock Group faces 19 counts, including securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud and making false statements.

Zoom in: Prosecutors allege that "for years" the 86-year-old Lewis "abused access to corporate board rooms and repeatedly provided inside information to his romantic partners, his personal assistants, his pilots and his friends," according to Williams.

• "Those folks then traded on that inside information and made millions of dollars on the stock market. Thanks to Lewis, those bets were a sure thing," he said. "None of this was necessary."
• Williams called the allegations "classic corporate corruption," adding: "It's cheating and it’s against the law, laws that apply to everyone no matter who you are."

What they're saying: David Zornow, an attorney for Lewis, said in a statement to media that the "government has made an egregious error in judgment in charging" Lewis, whom he described as having "impeccable integrity and prodigious accomplishment."

• He added that Lewis had come to the U.S. "voluntarily to answer these ill-conceived charges, and we will defend him vigorously in court."

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.