Billionaire gets prison in fraud case

Local billionaire and Broadcom Corp. founder Henry Samueli next year will be at the mercy of a federal judge, who’ll sentence him to prison for pleading guilty to lying to government investigators about his role in a fraud.

On Thursday, Samueli lost an appeal in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He was appealing Judge Cormac Carney’s decision to not accept a plea bargain that he and prosecutors had agreed to last year.

Samueli pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his company’s alleged stock-option back-dating scheme for Broadcom employees. As part of the plea bargain, he hoped to pay more than $12 million in fines and be sentenced to five years’ probation instead of a maximum five-year sentence.

Carney rejected the lighter sentence in September 2008, saying it made it appear that justice was for sale.

On Thursday, the three-judge panel of Ferdinand Fernandez, Ronald Gould and District Judge Morrison England Jr. said Samueli was too far into the legal process to have the appeal heard. So they threw it out.

“Samueli declined to withdraw his guilty plea and now awaits sentencing,” Gould wrote in the panel’s opinion.

He did say Samueli could appeal the sentence afterward.

According to federal court papers, Samueli is due back in court in April for sentencing. He may have to testify against Broadcom co-founder Henry T. Nicholas and Chief Financial Officer William Ruehle.

Samueli is a known philanthropist in Orange County, whose name is attached to UC Irvine’s School of Engineering and the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s theater.