Samueli's guilty plea Monday did not have any immediate bearing on his ownership of the Ducks, the team he purchased in 2005, or Anaheim Arena Management, which operates Honda Center.
"The Ducks and Anaheim Arena Management will not be commenting on this matter, except to say that today's events will not affect Henry Samueli's role with the team or arena," Ducks CEO Michael Schulman said.
According to NHL bylaws, the league can assume control of a club whose owner is convicted of a crime. It has happened as recently as 2002 when John Rigas, facing fraud charges involving his family's firm, Adelphia Corp., was forced to relinquish his ownership of the Buffalo Sabres.
AEG Chief Executive Tim Leiweke, whose company owns the NHL's Los Angeles Kings, voiced support for Samueli.
"Although this is a difficult time for Henry and his family, I believe he will come through this and continue to be a great partner and an important part of the sports and entertainment scene in Southern California," Leiweke said.
At Broadcom, Samueli's quiet personal manner contrasted sharply with that of his partner. Samueli had a reputation as a straight-arrow family man, and as an encouraging father figure to his engineers. Nicholas was known as a brash, hard-driving deal maker who did not shy from browbeating his staff to get results.
Samueli's parents, Sala and Aron, were Polish immigrants who survived Nazi Europe and arrived in the United States with almost nothing.
In 1991, Samueli co-founded Broadcom with Nicholas, his former engineering student at UCLA. They each threw in $5,000 and worked out of Nicholas' Redondo Beach home, moving to Irvine four years later and taking the firm public three years after that.
Samueli has cut a singular figure in the world of Orange County philanthropy. His name adorns the engineering school at UC Irvine (as well as the one at UCLA) and a 500-seat performing arts theater in the county's arts district. His gifts, which now exceed $200 million, have placed him at the vanguard of a growing generation of tech-wealth donors in a county once ruled by real estate fortunes.
Samueli's donation launched the Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library at Chapman University, which was dedicated in 2005. Speaking at the dedication, Samueli said that he got his best qualities from his parents.
