Samueli gets better hand than Carona
Broadcom Corp. and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Two highly visible operations headed until recently by relatively young men of power and charm. The kind of guys who inspired others while basking in their own success and the prospect of more of it to come.
Until the feds came calling, that is.
The two -- Broadcom co-founder Henry Samueli and former Sheriff Mike Carona -- have spent 2008 in the cross-hairs of federal prosecutors.
But the way things look now, you’d much rather be Samueli, and not just because he’s a billionaire and Carona isn’t.
Last month, I asked a rhetorical question: Do the feds ever rap someone on the knuckles and call it even?
Turns out they do.
They caught Samueli lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2007 and could have asked for five years in prison upon conviction. Instead, this week they pretty much let him skate. Of course, the word “skate” is subjective; Samueli has agreed to five years’ probation and a $12-million fine.
To you and me that would be a bit steep, but to the former Broadcom chairman and current owner of the Anaheim Ducks, it’s money he can find lying around the house. In agreeing to the plea deal, Samueli also can ask in three years that his probation be terminated.
Mind you, I’m not complaining. I wrote last month that I couldn’t pile on a guy who, along with his wife, has given a reported $200 million to various charities. So, when I raised the question of cutting him some slack, it was with his philanthropy in mind -- but also in the context of the nature of his crime.
In other words, we don’t give ax murderers a break just because they may have donated to charities.
The feds charged Samueli with misleading SEC staffers about his role in awarding stock options to a group of Broadcom employees.
The government doesn’t like it when you lie to them. Just ask multimedia star Martha Stewart, who served five months in prison in 2004-05 for lying to investigators about a stock sale.
So, Samueli got off lightly, and I’m not losing sleep over it. I still say that giving away $200 million to a host of civic causes earns you a break, unless your crime is egregious.
Speaking of ax murders . . .
Carona hasn’t been charged with any, but more filings like the one from prosecutors last week and he may not care.
What’s that old expression: The wheels of justice grind slowly, but once the feds get their hands on you, they can really squeeze the juice right out of you and make you wish you’d never been born?
Something like that.
Carona hasn’t even gone to trial yet, and prosecutors who charged him with corrupting his office are already working him over like he’s a speed bag at the gym.
It was bad enough that the original set of charges took pains to identify one of the others charged as his mistress. In a subsequent filing, prosecutors released excerpts from what they said was a tape-recorded conversation between Carona and a former assistant sheriff -- who was wearing a wire for prosecutors -- in which they agree to cover up illegal payments between them. The language got a tad salty for a sheriff who made hay by touting his personal virtues.
Then, last week, the feds struck again. They asked the federal court to let them tell jurors about Carona’s alleged efforts to persuade a female employee to cover up the tawdry sexual activities of the sheriff’s top assistant and lie about her alleged subsequent affair with the former sheriff. In the filing, the prosecutors slipped in information that Carona asked the woman to meet him off-site so they could speak in more detail without the assistant’s knowledge.
“At that off-site meeting,” prosecutors allege, “defendant Carona initiated a yearlong sexual relationship with the witness.”
Carona’s attorney hasn’t formally replied to the government’s brief but told reporters the effort represented an “end run” to get “otherwise unreliable evidence” into trial.
Those federal boys play for keeps, don’t they? No wonder so many people cop pleas before they get to trial -- they know how embarrassing things might get.
Carona has adamantly protested his innocence and says he’s going to trial. Maybe he thinks the pretrial publicity can’t get any worse, but does he really want to hear all this stuff played out in open court?
Two different men, two clearly different cases, but only Samueli has said the magic words: “Tell me where to sign so I can make this disappear.”
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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.
