Hiroaki Aoki

Hiroaki Aoki was born in Tokyo, the son of Yunosuke Aoki and his wife, Katsu. His family were descended from a samurai clan from Wakayama Prefecture, which served in the Kishū Domain.

Aoki and some friends started a rock and roll band called Rowdy Sounds, though Aoki eventually abandoned music for athletics. He would later explain, "I play bass. But I tell you why I change to wrestling: No good on tempo."

Aoki attended Keio University, where he competed in track and field, karate, and wrestling before being expelled for fighting. While some sources state that he competed for Japan in wrestling at the 1960 Summer Olympics held in Rome, he did not, as he had moved from Tokyo to New York City months before the Games.

Aoki was offered wrestling scholarships from several different American colleges. He attended Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts, and later transferred to CW Post College on Long Island. He won the United States flyweight wrestling title in 1962, 1963 and 1964.

In New York City, Aoki worked seven days a week in an ice cream truck that he rented in Harlem while studying restaurant management at New York City Community College.

Aoki, who was married three times, once said that he had "three kids from three different women at exactly the same time." He found out about the seventh with the third woman when he was sued for paternity. His third wife was Keiko Aoki, a businesswoman whom he married in 2002.

Before his death, he became a United States citizen.

On June 9, 1998, Aoki was charged with insider trading and profiting by more than $590,000 from it. The U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn charged Aoki with six counts of insider trading and one count of conspiracy based on trading upon inside information about Spectrum Information Technologies Inc. According to the indictment, Aoki learned through Donald Kessler, a former stock promoter, inside information concerning Spectrum's imminent hiring of John Sculley, then-chairman of Apple Computer Inc., as the chairman of Spectrum, and bought 200,000 shares of Spectrum stock. That stock rose 46% the day that this hiring was publicized.

In 1999, Aoki pleaded guilty to insider trading charges and was fined $500,000 and given three years' probation. Aoki was placed in deportation proceedings as a result of his guilty plea/conviction, but was granted relief by an immigration judge and his permanent resident ("green card") status maintained. He eventually became a United States citizen.

In 2005, Aoki sued four of his children (Grace, Kevin, Kyle, and Echo) for an alleged attempt to take control of the companies he founded, which, at the time, had an estimated value between US$60–100 million.