Henry Nicholas III & Stacey Nicholas — Broadcom Billions

What Happened

Henry Nicholas III co-founded Broadcom Corporation in 1991, building it into a semiconductor giant that made him a billionaire. He married Stacey, a fellow electrical engineer, in 1987, and they had three children. But beneath the surface of their Orange County mansion lay — literally — a hidden world.

In 2002, Stacey discovered Henry having sex with a prostitute while high on drugs in a secret warehouse. She filed for divorce that October. During proceedings, it emerged that Henry had constructed a network of underground tunnels and rooms beneath their Laguna Hills estate, accessible through a hidden door in the library that opened by remote control. The purpose, according to construction workers who built it, was to provide a space for drugs and encounters with sex workers — all kept secret from Stacey and city officials.

The divorce, finalized in 2008, triggered years of additional litigation over the couple's estimated $1.8 billion estate. Henry reportedly paid Stacey $100 million in 2007-2008, but she sought half the total fortune and filed to gain control of the family trust, alleging he had waged a campaign of threats, harassment, and intimidation. Her lawsuit to take over the trust was rejected in 2009.

Meanwhile, Henry faced federal indictment in 2008 on cocaine distribution and stock options backdating charges. Both sets of charges were eventually dismissed — the stock fraud in December 2009 and the drug charges in January 2010. But the divorce discovery process had already laid bare a double life that even the most sophisticated forensic accountants might have missed without Stacey's firsthand observations.

Legal Breakdown: How drug scandals and hidden lifestyles surface during divorce discovery

What This Means for Your Divorce