Legal News

Broadcom co-founder enters guilty plea

By Jason Siegel

The co-founder and former chief technical officer of Broadcom Corp., Henry Samueli, pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission during an investigation of stock options backdating at the company.

Samueli is the latest executive at the Irvine, Calif.-based broadband communications manufacturer to be indicted in a criminal stock option backdating case that lead the company to restate more than $2.2 billion in January 2007. Earlier this month, Henry T. Nicholas III, the other co-founder and former chief executive, and William Ruehle, the former chief financial officer, were indicted in the stock options backdating case.

Both have pleaded not guilty.

Nancy Tullos, former executive vice president of human resources at Broadcom, pleaded guilty last year to obstruction of justice charges. She is cooperating in the case.

Samueli, who pleaded guilty to one felony count, admitted lying to the SEC in May 2007 about his involvement in granting stock options to Broadcom?s top officers. He denied such involvement when, in fact, he helped determine in January 2002 that Broadcom should ?go with? the stock price on Oct. 19, 2001.

Under the plea deal, Samueli has agreed to a sentence of five years of probation, a $250,000 criminal fine and another $12 million payment to the federal government. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 18.

"Both parties have agreed this is a fair resolution of this issue, and we believe it is inappropriate to comment further until the judge rules," said Bill Furlow, a spokesman for Gordon Greenberg, a partner in the Los Angeles office of McDermott, Will & Emery, who represents Samueli.

-- Amanda Bronstad

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on June 25, 2008 (boomark / email).