<strong>The Orange County Business Journal
August 3, 2009
By Sarah Tolkoff</strong>

Gone is the portrait of a hard-partying, drug-addled executive gone crazy.

In its place is a much more sober picture of Dr. Henry “Nick” Nicholas: a pillar in academia, generous philanthropist and loving father.

Observers say the public picture of the Broadcom Corp. cofounder and billionaire is getting a makeover ahead of federal trials for fraud charges set for February and drug charges set for late 2010.

Nicholas has pleaded not guilty to 21 counts related to a conspiracy to illegally backdate stock options at the Irvine chipmaker and four separate counts of distributing drugs.

The people in Nicholas’ camp—a team of high-profile lawyers, public relations experts and consultants—contend there’s no image-building effort and it’s simply business as usual.

They declined to comment beyond that for this story.

In recent months, Nicholas has made friendly media appearances at charitable events, including at academic centers that bear his name, a Pacific Symphony gala and for Habitat for Humanity.

He’s also done selected interviews with the Orange County Register and others, where’s he’s made an effort to rectify some of the more salacious claims against him.

Even his Wikipedia entry highlights his softer persona, listing his academic credentials and past work backing victims’ rights initiatives, before detailing his legal troubles.

The efforts are straight out of the image-rehab playbook, observers say.

“A good defense team will look for ways to make the public understand that the defendant is a human being rather than a dehumanized evil doer,” said Wayne Gross, litigation partner at Snell and Wilmer LLP in Costa Mesa and former head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Santa Ana, which is leading prosecution of Nicholas. “The defense team will try to show that despite making mistakes, the defendant has contributed to society and is not the bad person depicted by the prosecution or the press. Publicizing philanthropy is one way to do this.”

Gross, who specializes in white collar issues, said pretrial posturing in high-profile cases “takes place all the time.”

“I would expect that Nicholas’ trial team would be exposing him to the public for the purpose of showing what an upstanding individual he may be,” said Marc Miles, partner at law firm Callahan &amp; Blaine in Santa Ana. “Because there is so much out there in the public already showing the negative side of him, it’s important that all of the times he is a good father and a good businessman be shown as well. Otherwise you have a situation where the jurors trying that case are already prejudiced going in.”

Nicholas has surrounded himself with the best in the business.

Brendan Sullivan of Washington, D.C.-based Williams &amp; Connolly LLP is handling his defense for the federal options case. Nicholas is accused of backdating stock options when he was chief executive at Broadcom. He headed the company from 1991 to 2003.

Sullivan is best known for defending Oliver North in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair.

John Potter, of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver &amp; Hedges LLP in San Francisco, is defending Nicholas on federal drug charges. Potter also represents him in civil cases related to disputes with former employees and the settling of assets after his divorce from his former wife, Stacey.

Potter previously held a number of high-ranking positions within the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He’s best known for the civil rights prosecution of the Los Angeles police officers involved in the Rodney King beating.

Los Angeles-based crisis consultant Michael Sitrick, principal at Sitrick &amp; Co., heads Nicholas’s public relations team.

Sitrick was brought in after Vanity Fair published an investigative story that proved to be a big turning point, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The article’s title says it all: “Dr. Nicholas and Mr. Hyde: Sex, Lies and Underground Lairs.”

Some say that because Nicholas’ representatives didn’t refute many of the claims in the story—done without his participation—the damage was irrevocable.

Still, according to sources close to Nicholas, there’s no grand plan in place to rehabilitate his image in the public eye.

Some say that he had retained the services of public relations firms before last year’s legal issues came into the picture and that engaging with Sitrick is no different.

Sitrick’s involvement with Nicholas has been fairly low-profile compared to some of his previous clients. He launched full-fledged spin campaigns with high-profile executive clients in the past.

Sitrick represented Patricia Dunn, former non-executive chairman of Hewlett-Packard Co. She was charged with leaking inside information to the press and others. He orchestrated an aggressive media campaign that had Dunn being interviewed on “60 Minutes” just days after she was indicted. Charges against her were later dropped.

Some close to Nicholas, who’s net worth clocks in at $1.8 billion on this year’s OC Wealthiest list (see story, page 29), say that he’s always been a generous philanthropist, going back to gifts he made in the late 1990s for causes close to his heart: education, the arts and victims’ rights.

There’s no doubt Nicholas still has many supporters willing to defend his reputation.

“I have had the opportunity to see Nick and know him through a lot of years,” said businessman and philanthropist Mark Chapin Johnson. “The overwhelming majority of what has been written about Nick, if it’s not outright fiction, has been so blown out of proportion it no longer bears any relevance to who he is or how he behaves.”

Meanwhile, team Nicholas is gearing up for the fight of his life.

What prosecutors dig up ahead of the trials, and what’s admitted as evidence, could raise serious concerns.

Particularly damning are an e-mail and a surveillance video that appear to directly connect Nicholas with drug use.

More could come out in outstanding civil suits.

“The jury pool is going to be made up of individuals who are here in Orange County,” Callahan &amp; Blaine’s Miles said. “To the extent that the media has been one-sided against Nicholas, you may see some balancing by his team so that the jury goes into the courtroom with a level playing field.”