Inside trial of Mike Lynch who was given 0.5% chance of acquittal: How missing billionaire was victorious over US legal system in one of Silicon Valley's biggest-ever fraud trials - before tragedy struck as he celebrated his freedom Follow MailOnline's live coverage as search continues in superyacht tragedy By Matt Strudwick Published: 09:12 BST, 20 August 2024 | Updated: 09:42 BST, 20 August 2024 e-mail 4 View comments Just a couple of months ago, British billionaire tech tycoon Mike Lynch left a US courtroom bleary eyed and a free man having been acquitted in one of the biggest ever fraud cases . In the weeks before, Lynch had said his goodbyes to his family and believed he would die in prison with a 25 year jail term all but inevitable with fewer than 0.
5 per cent of federal criminal cases in America ending in acquittal. But the 59-year-old tycoon - who had spent much of the previous year living under house arrest with an electronic tag attached to his ankle - beat the odds, much to his own surprise. Mr Lynch, dubbed 'Britain's Bill Gates', placed his head in his hands and was embraced by his wife when he was cleared of conducting a massive fraud relating to a £8.
64 billion sale of his firm, Autonomy, to US company Hewlett-Packard in 2011. The three month trial on the 17th floor of San Francisco's federal courthouse brought an end to a 13-year legal saga that had been hanging over the entrepreneur's head. It was an unexpected 'second life' he was going to grab with both h.