Police: Tech billionaire, woman arrested on drug charges at Strip hotel

Thu, Aug 9, 2018 (4:51 p.m.)

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Henry Nicholas III

Click to enlarge photo

Ashley Fargo

A billionaire co-founder of a tech company and a woman were arrested Tuesday when officers found heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and ecstasy in their Las Vegas Strip hotel room, according to Metro Police.

Henry Nicholas III and Ashley Fargo were arrested on four counts each of drug trafficking, police said.

Security for the resort at 3131 Las Vegas Blvd. South reported “contraband” in a room and called Metro about 4:45 p.m., police said. They were arrested several hours later.

Nicholas and Fargo have since bailed out of jail; further information was not immediately available.

Nicholas is worth $3.1 billion, according to Forbes. He and a partner founded Broadcom in 1991.

In 2016, the company was acquired for $37 billion, according to the publication. Nicholas retired three years prior and maintains a 3 percent stake in the company, which was renamed Broadcom Ltd.

“(Nicholas) is now focused on philanthropy, supporting art, education and crime victims’ rights,” according to Forbes.

This wasn’t Nicholas’ first run-in with law enforcement, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In 2008, Nicholas was indicted in a drug case in which he allegedly supplied cocaine and ecstasy to friends and business associates, the newspaper reported.

Authorities further alleged that Nicholas and several associates “generated so much marijuana smoke” during a flight from California to Las Vegas that the smoke filled the cockpit, “requiring the pilot flying the plane to put on an oxygen mask,” according to the LA Times.

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