Samueli lets his guilty plea stand

Henry Samueli, the billionaire co-founder of Irvine-based Broadcom Corp., is gambling possible prison time that an appeals court will accept a plea deal that a lower-court judge rejected in one of the nation’s largest cases of stock-option backdating.

Samueli is leaving his guilty plea in place as he pursues the appeal, his attorney, Gordon Greenberg, said at a hearing in Santa Ana before U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney.

In June, Samueli pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about backdating at Broadcom. Prosecutors agreed to let him pay $12 million and get probation instead of prison.

Carney, who rejected the deal as too lenient, warned Samueli that if he loses his appeal he could face a harsher sentence than the one he agreed to with prosecutors. Sentencing is set for Aug. 3.