Envy of the Successful

Many U.S. Attorneys of the Rove-Cheney-Bush-era cannot handle people (particularly Democrats) who just happen to be smarter, more successful, or wealthier than them.

Some of the most high profile criminal prosecutions during the Rove years were against successful individuals ranging from technology gurus to fundraising mavericks to internationally recognized trial attorneys.

But the Rove Republican Racket lost a big fish, a California billionaire who they smeared with false drug accusations.

Forbes Magazine's Global Wealth Editor, Matthew Miller, writes:

Vindication has come for Henry Nicholas. After more than a year of nasty accusations, the Broadcom co-founder is a free man. And he doesn't have to go to trial to clear his name.  This is a shocking turn of events for Nicholas, considering the traction two indictments levied against him in federal court in 2008 got with the media. The indictments, which made him out to be a hooker-loving, drugged-up billionaire who dabbled in securities fraud, essentially cemented his image as a dirty guy--or at least someone who couldn't handle success.

But [two weeks ago] federal prosecutors asked judge Cormac J. Carney to dismiss a 4-count indictment that charges Nicholas with drug conspiracy. This request for dismissal came a few weeks after judge Carney threw out charges on 21 counts of options backdating and securities fraud against Nicholas and former Broadcom chief financial officer William Ruehle.

The drug charges were the centerpiece of a well-orchestrated plan to smear Nicholas. As his lawyer's told Miller last fall:

Nicholas and his lawyers were emphatic that the drug indictment, which suggested Nicholas enjoyed plying Broadcom customers with drinks spiked with Ecstasy and built a series of secret rooms underneath his Laguna Hills mansion to party in, was filed only to stir up attention on a weaker options indictment. "The prosecutors have borrowed a page from the plaintiff's attorneys' playbook and have peppered the indictment with inflammatory, untrue and irrelevant allegations," John Potter, Nicholas' lead attorney on the drug case told us in September.

Prosecutorial misconduct and the shenanigans of manipulating the jury pool are not new. And as this blog has noted, from Maine to Alaska, the vindictive nature of many Rove Republican Racket prosecutors has no basis in law, but is based on partisan politics or simple envy.