Lawyers: Samueli Dismissal 'Stunning'

Lawyers: Samueli Dismissal 'Stunning' - 12-10-2009 , Class Action News, Class Action, Securities News, shareholder class action, claim, litigation, securities action, common stock'>

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HEADLINES \| SETTLEMENTS AND DISMISSALS \| COURT FILINGS LINKS TO OTHER NEWS \| NEWS ARCHIVE	HEADLINES ARCHIVED SETTLEMENTS AND DISMISSALS ARCHIVED

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Lawyers: Samueli Dismissal 'Stunning'
Andrew Galvin and Rachanee Srisavasdi

Orange County Register. December 10, 2009
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EXCERPT: A federal judge's decision to toss the guilty plea of Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry Samueli – in the middle of the trial of another defendant – was highly unusual and has implications for related cases, lawyers unconnected to the case said today. "I have never, ever heard of this from any judge anywhere in the country," said Lawrence Rosenthal, a former federal prosecutor who is a professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange. "It is stunning." U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney heard Samueli testify over a two-day period this week in the accounting-fraud trial of his former Broadcom colleague, William Ruehle, who was the company's chief financial officer. After hearing Samueli's testimony, and without giving prosecutors a chance to argue, Carney told Samueli on Wednesday that he was setting aside his guilty plea and throwing out the criminal charge against him of lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That the judge would rule based on "the self-serving testimony of a defendant" and without giving prosecutors a chance to present evidence of Samueli's guilt "is No. 1 on my hit parade of stunning," Rosenthal said. John Hueston, a former top federal prosecutor in Orange County who now does white-collar defense work, said Carney's ruling was "virtually unprecedented and extraordinary." "Here, the defense effectively put the government on trial but was aided by some real-time misconduct by the government during the trial itself," Hueston said. Carney's dismissal of Samueli's case came after he found that federal prosecutor Andrew Stolper had committed misconduct toward another former Broadcom executive, David Dull. Stolper had warned Dull's lawyers that Dull could face perjury charges if his testimony in Ruehle's trial was similar to a deposition Dull gave to the SEC.

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