Ex-Currency Boss at HSBC Hopes to Be Rescued by Three-Legged Dog

• Mark Johnson awaits sentencing on fraud, conspiracy conviction • Defense seeks house arrest, U.S. prefers seven-year sentence

In a letter to the judge who could sentence Mark Johnson to as many as seven years for fraud, the former currency trader is described as a loving father who took his children for a last goodbye on the beach with their ailing three-legged Labrador, Batdog.

In an audiotape that helped convict him, the ex-head of global FX trading for HSBC Holdings Plc called a colleague a “f---ing moaning bastard -- I do all the work, he gets all the glory.”

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn, New ...