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

[NashVegas]

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

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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?