KEY POINTS:
Henry T. Nicholas III was, for a brief period, one of the richest men in America. A patron of the Orange County arts scene, he had a trophy wife and enjoyed playing Rod Stewart numbers at full volume from the steps of his mansion.
The 2.01m 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:
* a private jet
* a Lamborghini
* a mansion in Laguna Hills with its own equestrian estate
and, court documents claim:
* his personal brothel, hidden in an underground grotto, called Ponderosa.
The grotto was reached by hidden doors with secret levers, leading to tunnels and a 185sq m sports bar called "Nick's Cafe".
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 [laughing gas]".
In January 2003, Nicholas quit Broadcom, saying he intended to spend more time with his children and tend to his marriage. Among the many legal troubles he now faces is a divorce battle with his wife Stacey, with whom he controls US$1.1 billion in Broadcom shares.
Nicholas apparently told his wife about the underground passageways and rooms under their mansion when work began. The construction cost US$30 million to build over three years. In August 2000, Nicholas took his wife to Hawaii for a week while work was being finished. But the noise and the sight of armed guards blocking public horse-trails near the site led neighbours to complain. The authorities shut the building site. At the time, Nicholas told the Los Angeles Times the structure was "a pump-house" for run-off water.
The contractors say the underground site "was infamous for excessive extravagance, its sex rooms and its million-dollar sound equipment". The allegations were made by a construction company which says it was not paid. The claims have been denounced as falsehoods by Nicholas's lawyer but echo other claims made by Kenji Kato, Nicholas's former assistant. Kato says he is owed US$150,000 and alleges serial drug use and other debauchery at the mansion.
- INDEPENDENT
