Billionaire accused of building hidden sex and drugs den (Bush Donor)

Source: The Independent (UK)

The 6ft 6ins engineer founded the company Broadcom in 1991, making the innards of cable TV boxes at his Redondo Beach apartment. When it floated in the go-go years of the internet boom, his shares went up in value 40 times and he soon acquired the trappings of the super rich: private jets, a Lamborghini and a mansion in Laguna Hills with its own equestrian estate and, court documents claim, his personal brothel, hidden in an underground grotto.

The grotto was reached by hidden doors with secret levers, leading to tunnels and a 2,000sq-ft underground sports bar called "Nick's Café". According to claims in court papers, this was a "secret and convenient lair", to cater for "Mr Nicholas's manic obsession with prostitutes" and his "addiction to cocaine and ecstasy".

He used his private jet to pick up prostitutes as far away as New Orleans, Chicago, Las Vegas and Los Angeles "and bring them back to the Pond for his rock star friends", according to documents filed with Orange County Superior Court. "He provided his guests with transportation and cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamines, marijuana, mushrooms, and nitrous oxide ".

....

At the time, Mr Nicholas told the Los Angeles Times the structure was "a pump-house" for run-off water. The contractors say the underground site, called Ponderosa, "was infamous for excessive extravagance, its sex rooms and its million-dollar sound equipment", the documents claimed. The allegations were made by a construction company which says it was not paid. The claims have been denounced as falsehoods by Mr Nicholas's lawyer but echo other claims made by Kenji Kato, Mr Nicholas's former assistant. Mr Kato says he is owed $150,000 in back wages, and alleges serial drug use and other debauchery at the mansion.

Read more: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2782502.ece

---

from Opensecrets.org:

NICHOLAS, HENRY T DR BROADCOM CORP 7/21/1999 $2,000 Bush, George W
LAGUNA HILLS,CA 92653


NICHOLAS, HENRY T DR BROADCOM CORP 8/18/1999 ($1,000) Bush, George W

LAGUNA HILLS,CA 92653

NICHOLAS, STACEY MRS HOMEMAKER 8/18/1999 $1,000 Bush, George W
LAGUNA HILLS,CA 92653


I'm not sure why the second number is in parentheses. Soft money? Change his mind and decided it needed to come from wifey to get around limits?

:kick:

I'm getting a bit tired of reading about GOP shenanigans from foreign news sources.

do you actually think this media would "turn" on one it's own?

nt

he told me about a different millionaire in that area who also had a secret sex compound. He had done the cable so he had been all through it. This millionaire was also in the television delivery business. That's Orange County for you.

During college I worked summers for my hometown cable company. I'd heard rumors for years that a certain downtown bar had a brothel on the second floor. When the owner needed cable installed in her second floor office, I found out that all the rumors were true.

I also took a service call at the house of one of my high school teachers and found him too drunk to function at 9 AM. When I was done he tried like crazy to get me to drink a beer with him even though I was only 19.

it's SOUTH county. that's where most of the money is. BIG difference.

there is no such county as "South County". Anaheim Hills (north part of OC) = money, Newport Beach = $$$$, etc. I used to live there. I know that generalities don't hold true for everyone who lives in the county but in general Orange County is republican, racist and sexually uptight/hypocritical.

How many non-white police or fireman are there in Anaheim? Zero! south OC, north OC not much difference.

i used to live there too - born and raised (a dem) in the oc, family has been there since the turn of the century and all that. all of us aren't cut from the same cloth! so you're lumping santa ana in with laguna beach? :eyes: ohhhh kayyyyy....

as far as police/firemen goes, i couldn't tell you that cause i got out of there about 20 years ago.

and I said nothing about Laguna Beach so you wasted a perfectly good eye roll icon.

I have some very good friends in Orange County but that doesn't change this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_County,_California#Politics

Orange County has long been known as a Republican stronghold and has consistently sent Republican representatives to the state and federal legislatures. Republican majorities in Orange County helped deliver California's electoral votes to Republican presidential candidates Richard Nixon (1960, 1968 and 1972), Gerald Ford (1976), Ronald Reagan (1980 and 1984) and George H. W. Bush (1988). Orange County has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1936 landslide re-election for a second term. Although Democrats have made inroads in the northern end of the county since the mid-1980s, Orange County politics are still dominated by Republicans. Five of the county's six U.S. Representatives, four of its five State Senators and seven of its nine State Assembly members are Republicans, as are all five members of the County Board of Supervisors. Only four Democrats have carried the county in a statewide race in the last 50 years;

or this (Klanaheim; north part of county):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaheim,_California#History

I had about 1/5 of my portfolio value invested in Broadcom through a well known investment firm. When the bubble burst, my investment councilor said keep it, wait it out. Bad advise, I lost 3/4 of my retirement in NASDAQ stocks.
I cannot begin to express my anger at that firm, which I am no longer with, and the economic shenanigans of those tech. companies. This happened at the time Bush came into office and 9/11. I cannot help but believe this was the beginning of the pillaging of the Middle Class's economic status. Beware, the major banks and investment firms are actively doing everything they legally (and possibly illegally) can to take your investments, equity in your homes and drown you in credit card debt.

Because that's what will happen exactly. Our tax dollars will fund their debauchery.

And you are so right.

and welcome to DU!

Edit for manners!

so I think you're right - he paid the $2000, but wanted it to not look so big, (for whatever 'just in case' he had in mind), withdrew that $1000 and paid it again in his wife's name.

:rofl:

Who else? Check out H. Nicholas's picture on Google and tell me that you can't see Nick donning a goatee and playing this guy. Plus, Nic Cage is in EVERYTHING these days it seems.

He has to rely on his natural skills!

Gi-ga-dy!

And I wonder what countries they may have been kidnapped from.

... who is he trying to keep IN???

so that he can afford all this!

...that when people make a lot of money, they use it providing employment to others, just like capitalists say they do.

and screw their emploiyees out of their due wages.

fucking rich pricks.

But I was referring to the hookers.

but who turned him in in the end?? A rightfully disgruntled former employee. And why was this former employee disgruntled?? Because his ex-boss had screwed him out of money...out of wages that were rightfully due him.

So, the capitalists never said what the work would actually be.

and our capitalists have extended their thoughtfulness to Iraqi widows.

As a progressive I feel that drugs and prostitution should be legal and that if someone wants to enjoy a kinky lifestyle that’s their own business, not mine. That this guy screwed his workers out of their just wages is the crime here, but if a person wants to build their own kink room whose business is it other than their own? When guys like Vitter proclaim their moral superiority for self imposed sexual repression, and speak out against others while trying to legislate that crap and then get caught with hookers, that is a true outrage for which they should be duly harassed, but this guy is a private individual seeking his own pleasure; why is that a problem? This is supposed to be a free country, right? I can see why he would want to hide his kink because our society has its ridiculous puritan ethic and no one wants to be pointed at as an outsider, but here on DU I’d expect people to have a more tolerant opinion of this. Now, if the guy was holding people against their will then that is obviously a different story, but is a sex room really that big a deal?

How about: he donates to the party that would outlaw and prevent all this which makes him a total greedy hypocrite.

As well as a self-indulgent pervert.

Drugs and prostitution are currently illegal, and I don't hear many of the candidates in EITHER party suggesting it should be otherwise. Greedy, sure, and a self-indulgent pervert as well, but he'd be a hypocrite for donating to just about any major presidential candidate in EITHER party.

I donate to candidates with whom I basically agree but I almost never agree with everything in their platform, does that make me a hypocrite? And who are we to judge whether someone else is a pervert or not? I consider myself a normal guy but I am sure that some repressed bible thumpers would consider me a pervert. By who's standard should one be judged? This guy may have some odd kinks but as far as I am concerned he is entitled to them. It's like when Rush got busted for drugs, I have no problem with his drug use, but his vial railing against drug users when he himself was a popping pill is what pisses me off. This guy is likely a prick and my intent is not to defend him, but only to play devil's advocate. I just worry when I see the enlightened left here on DU lighting up over personal space issues.

I'd call his actions highly relevent.

66 was heavily favored in the polls; it would have reformed California's "Three strikes" law to include only felonies where violence was a factor. ie, get arrested 3 times for prostitution or drug posession, and you wouldn't be automatically sent to jail.

Nicholas funded a last minute PR blitz that beat back 66. Here was a guy who was involved with the same drugs that were sending non-violent offenders to prison. One rule for him, a different rule for everyone else.

Notice the one thing I latched onto in my posts in this subject...and for me, the true source of my outrage....was the employee who'd gotten screwed out of rightfully-due wages!!

And that long before the post I'm now replying to! I agree...if there is one thing in this story that SHOULD piss us all off, that's it right there!! The worker who got screwed. Who gives a damn if the guy wants to have a kinky lifestyle?

If I'd been him, I'd hide that, too...just because...as you rightly point out - we have a ridiculous "puritan" element in our society that really needs to die.

And yeah, if the guy is on a moral values soapbox, and then is uncovered to be doing something like this (aka shown to be a foul hypocrite pig) then, yes, he ought to be harassed to the ends of the earth and back. If there are two things I cannot fucking stand, it is a rich bastard who screws people out of wages....and a foul hypocrite pig.

And most Republicans are both!!

if this were Hugh Hefner, or some rock star who supported Dems?

that drugs and prostitution are illegal.

Interstate transport of prostitutes is illegal.

I'd like to see neon yellow tee shirts outlawed, because I'm tired of seeing those tacky things, but Congress has yet to show concern for my feelings about those matters.

I think that all Americans should have free health care, but the hospital still goes after those who don't pay their bills.

What you and I *think* should be legal is inconsequential.

This Republican billionaire funded assholes who DO legislate morality, so he's let his money speak for him. Too bad that he isn't living up to his money's expectations.

the other way after the donation, there's no story here. I'm sure if anyone went through the list of donors for the Democratic candidates with a fine toothed comb, they'd come up with some real winners (or losers) as well.

Where it's a problem is when there is an apparent quid pro quo, as in the Marc Rich case.

Got to set my sights higher, I see...

I wonder if he has a "diaper" section - on second thought - no I don't...

Why are there so many republicon perverts?