Orange County tech billionaire Henry T. Nicholas III charged with drug trafficking following Las Vegas arrest
Orange County tech billionaire Henry T. Nicholas III was charged Wednesday, Feb. 13 with multiple drug possession and trafficking charges in connection with a 2018 arrest at a Las Vegas hotel room where police found suspected heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, mushrooms and ecstasy.
Nicholas, co-founder of the chipmaker Broadcom, was arrested Aug. 7 along with a woman, Ashley Fargo, according to a police report obtained by the Southern California News Group.
Police were summoned to the hotel because Nicholas was having difficulty opening the door to his room and became concerned about the welfare of Fargo who was inside and failed to answer the door, according to the report.
When police entered the room, they found Fargo unresponsive and lying on a bed with a semi-deflated balloon in her mouth. A canister of nitrous oxide that Nicholas claimed was for recreational use was found in the corner of the room, according to police.
“The sort of use mentioned by Nicholas explained the balloon in Fargo’s mouth, as this is a common way to ingest nitrous-oxide as an inhalant known as whippets or poppers,” the report says.
Police said they also found two cases in the room that contained what appeared to be marijuana and bags of powder and other substances believed to be narcotics.
Nicholas and Fargo were charged Wednesday in Clark County Justice Court with five counts of trafficking and two counts of possessing a controlled substance.
David Z. Chesnoff, an attorney representing Nicholas, said his client and Fargo deny the charges.
“The charges are only allegations and not facts,” he said. “The actual facts are that Dr. Nicholas is a philanthropist, an advocate for victim’s rights, a scientist and co-founder of a global company. He is not a drug trafficker. We plan to file a motion to dismiss the entire matter on a number of grounds, including lack of evidence.”
Nicholas co-founded Broadcom in the 1990s and left the company in 2003. Recently, he has been bankrolling ballot measures in the U.S. that aim to guarantee certain rights to crime victims.
His estate is estimated to be worth $3.1 billion by Forbes magazine, which says Nicholas kept a 3 percent stake in the company. Broadcom was acquired by Singapore-based chip firm Avago in February 2016 for $37 billion in cash and stock and was renamed Broadcom Ltd. Formerly based in Irvine, the company has since moved its headquarters to San Jose.
Nicholas has struggled with illicit drug charges in the past. In June 2008, he was charged with four counts of distributing illegal drugs and 21 counts that he presided over a conspiracy to inflate and improperly account for $2.2 billion in Broadcom employee stock options, leading to the largest financial restatement of its kind in U.S. history.
He pleaded not guilty to all the charges, which later were dismissed.
But by then, the case had made national headlines. A profile in Vanity Fair had the title: “Dr. Nicholas and Mr. Hyde: Sex, Lies and Underground Lairs.”
The court filings in the past case painted Nicholas as a ruthless entrepreneur who slipped drugs to competitors without their knowledge, who threatened the lives of employees he believed had turned against him, who had the means and motive to flee beyond the reach of justice in his private jet.
Among the allegations: Nicholas and his entourage once smoked so much marijuana aboard his personal jet that the pilot donned an oxygen mask, the drug indictment said; Nicholas entertained clients with prostitutes, cocaine and “ecstasy”; Nicholas built a secret lair for sex and drug orgies.
After the charges were dropped, Nicholas set out to clear his name.
A longtime philanthropist, he donated time and money to his children’s school, St. Margaret’s Episcopal in San Juan Capistrano and supported the Nicholas Academic Centers, a program for underprivileged urban students.
Other organizations benefiting from Nicholas’ largesse included Habitat for Humanity, a small-business incubator called Chefs Center of California, the Episcopal Church, Opera Pacific, the Pacific Symphony, the Ocean Institute, engineering and computer science programs at UCI, the Oakland Military Institute, and the Mt. Olive School for girls in Kenya.
Nicholas also bankrolled California’s Marsy’s Law, a bill of rights for victims of violent crime named after his sister, who was slain by an ex-boyfriend in 1983. Nicholas backed the initiative with $4.9 million in campaign contributions.
Nicholas and Fargo are scheduled to be arraigned March 11.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.