UK Billionaire Joe Lewis Avoids Prison With 3-Year Probation (4)

A visibly shaking Joe Lewis, the 87-year-old UK billionaire who pleaded guilty to insider trading, was spared jail time by a federal judge in New York.

US District Judge Jessica Clarke at a hearing Thursday sentenced Lewis to three-years’ probation and a $5 million fine. An attorney for Lewis said that any incarceration would be “catastrophic.”

“You have before you a frail 87-year-old man with significant health challenges whose condition has only deteriorated since the indictment” in July, his attorney, David Zornow, said shortly before sentencing.

His guilty plea in January marked a low point in Lewis’ rags-to-riches ...