Billionaire behind Marsy's Law push in Wisconsin and elsewhere facing drug trafficking charges
MADISON - The founder of a national group pushing to amend Wisconsin's Constitution to include more rights for crime victims is facing drug trafficking charges after police allegedly found heroin, cocaine, meth and ecstasy in his Las Vegas hotel room.
Henry T. Nicholas III, a billionaire who funds the crime victim advocacy group known as Marsy's Law, was arrested Aug. 6 on suspicion of drug trafficking after police found contraband in Nicholas' room at a Las Vegas Strip casino resort, according to The Associated Press.
Records sought by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from the Clark County District Attorney in Nevada were unavailable.
Prominent Wisconsin elected officials — including Gov. Scott Walker and Attorney General Brad Schimel — have encouraged voters to pass a constitutional amendment largely written by Nicholas' group that would provide victims of crimes and their families with more input in how crimes against them are prosecuted and provide more privacy protections.
Aides to both Walker and Schimel did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokeswoman for Marsy's Law referred questions from a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter to Nicholas' attorney, but the group released a statement earlier this month to media outlets that said the "allegations in the media should not interfere with Marsy's Law, the victims rights movement started by Dr. Nicholas, that so many victims, advocates, law enforcement leaders, staff and volunteers are working to advance across the country."
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Marsy's Law, as the proposal is known, is similar to ones that have been adopted in Illinois, California, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. It is named after Marsy Nicholas of California, who was murdered by her former boyfriend in 1983. The ex-boyfriend confronted Nicholas' family in a grocery store a week after her death, at a time when the family did not know he had been released on bail.
Nicholas, her brother, has led a national effort to give crime victims and their families more rights. His group is promoting the Wisconsin proposal with billboards, digital ads and a lobbying campaign.
But Nicholas also drew attention about a decade ago, when he was charged with security fraud and drug trafficking. And court records show Nicholas also once planned to build a secret "lair' to indulge his "manic obsession with prostitutes" and "addiction to cocaine and ecstasy," according to a 2007 article in the Los Angeles Times.
All previous charges against him were dismissed in 2010, however.
Attorney David Chesnoff, Nicholas' attorney, told The Associated Press his team is doing its own investigation into the Aug. 6 incident and will “deal with the facts in court.” Chesnoff did not return a phone call Thursday.
Nicholas is a co-founder of semiconductor firm Broadcom and is estimated to have a net worth of $3 billion, according to Forbes. He retired from Broadcom in 2003 but retains a small stake in the company, according to Forbes.
Constitutional amendments in Wisconsin must be passed by the Legislature in two consecutive legislative sessions and then by voters in a statewide referendum. Lawmakers passed it once in 2017, which means the proposal could not become law until 2019 at the earliest.
The Wisconsin proposal has broad support among Democratic and Republican lawmakers and more than 250 county sheriffs and police chiefs. Some statewide victim advocacy groups have supported the measure as well.
In 1980, Wisconsin became the first state in the country to adopt a "crime victim bill of rights" and in 1993 adopted a constitutional amendment to afford them privacy and ensure they are kept abreast of their cases.
The Marsy's Law proposal would strengthen some of the rights guaranteed in state law by writing them into the constitution.
Two states that adopted the amendment to their state constitutions have since reversed course.
South Dakota changed its law in January to ease workloads of law enforcement and state prosecutors. And Montana's state Supreme Court voided its law in 2017, saying voters should have approved each new protection individually rather than as a package.
Some defense attorneys have questioned whether the proposal could conflict with the rights given to defendants under the U.S. Constitution.
They point to a provision in the measure that would give people claiming to be crime victims the right to refuse to turn over evidence through discovery to a defendant's attorney. That could create instances where someone wrongly accused of a crime could not recover text messages or emails that would help prove their innocence, he said.
The proposal, however, was amended to say that it is not intended to conflict with or outrank a defendant's federal rights.
Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.