Local News in Brief : Irvine : Luby’s Estate Sold at Auction for $1.7 Million
The Newport Beach estate of developer Roger W. Luby, who along with Aissa Wayne, daughter of the late John Wayne, was bound and pistol-whipped in a brutal attack last October, was auctioned for $1.75 million here Thursday.
Thomas A. Cowan, who represented the Los Angeles-based Sanwa Bank of California, beat out another bidder who declined to be identified. The bank, which holds the second deed of trust on the property, will sell the estate, Cowan said.
According to a public notice published last month, the property had been put on the auction block by the trustee to clear the mortgage’s unpaid balance of about $1.15 million.
The opening bid was about $1.15 million. The estate has been valued at $3 million.
Luby, who could not be reached for comment, filed for bankruptcy in 1987, when, he alleges, a group of lenders reneged on an agreement to provide him $56 million to finance the rehabilitation of the historic Broadway department store at Broadway and 4th Street in Los Angeles.
A suit by Luby against the lenders is pending in court.
The attack on Luby and Wayne remains unsolved, according to Newport Beach Police Sgt. Mike Jackson.
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