Their Lives Were Bound by a Fraud Case; Their Fates by a Sinking Yacht

For Mike Lynch, June 6 was a day more than a decade in the making.Standing in a courtroom in San Francisco, the British software mogul had just been found not guilty of defrauding Hewlett-Packard in the sale of his software company, Autonomy.It was a case that, for more than a year, had kept him shuffling around a townhouse wearing an ankle bracelet in a city 5,300 miles from home.Nearby, Christopher J.

Morvillo, the veteran corporate lawyer who helped lead Mr.Lynch’s legal team, also felt a huge wave of relief.The two men had been joined at the hip for years to rebut HP’s accusations in the United States and Britain.

One legal expert compared the proceedings in San Francisco to Enron’s in complexity, given the thousands of documents and accounting maneuvers at issue.An acquittal had seemed unlikely a year ago.After leaving the courtroom, Mr.

Lynch cut off his ankle bracelet.Mr.

Morvillo turned to LinkedIn, writing his first-ever post to thank his colleagues and express his relief.“And they all lived happily ever after ….” he wrote.That happy ending didn’t last long.Less than three months later, Mr.Lynch and Mr.

Morvillo, both 59, died aboard the tech magnate’s family yacht, the Bayesian, when it foundered off the coast of Sicily.Five others died as well: Mr.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah; Mr.Morvillo’s wife, Neda; Jonathan Bloomer, a prominent British insurance executive; Mr.

Bloomer’s wife, Judy; and Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s cook.And in a bizarre coincidence, Stephen Chamberlain, a financial executive at Autonomy who was Mr.Lynch’s co-defendant in San Francisco, was fatally struck in a hit-and-run in England days before.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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