Gionis’ Fast Rise, Quick Temper Described by Associates : How Newport’s Police Broke the Case

The first clues came almost immediately, but it took 6 months for them to lead Newport Beach detectives through a mountain of business documents, through a search for a wooden-legged man and through the bitterness of a society child-custody battle to the arrest of a wealthy Pomona orthopedic surgeon.

Dr. Thomas A. Gionis remains in jail today, charged with ordering an attack by two hired thugs on his former wife, Aissa Wayne--daughter of the late actor John Wayne--and on her companion, financier Roger W. Luby.

Gionis’ motive, according to Newport Beach police, was to win the legal battle over custody of his 2-year-old daughter, Anastasia.

“He wanted that child so badly he would do anything to get her,” said Sgt. Mike Jackson, who headed the investigation.

Jackson, interviewed Wednesday by The Times, detailed how he and four other investigators laboriously pried the lid off the case, ending in three arrests and a European search for a fourth suspect.

The attack occurred on the morning of Oct. 3, just after Wayne and Luby had driven through the electronically controlled gate at Luby’s Newport Beach estate on 22nd Street.

Before the gate could close behind the car, two men who looked like construction workers entered and called Luby by name. Both were armed with handguns, police said. They tied up and beat both Luby and Wayne. One of them cut Luby’s right Achilles’ tendon and told Wayne, “next time, we kill you.”

Jackson said the first significant leads in the case were uncovered the same day of the attack. Construction workers at a home across from Luby’s provided detailed descriptions of the men whom they had seen coming from Luby’s estate. One walked with a limp, they said, reminding one witness of a relative with a wooden leg.

They also described a man they had seen parked outside the Luby estate that morning who made repeated calls from his car telephone.

Jackson said drawings were made from the witnesses’ descriptions, and Wayne immediately recognized the man who had been parked outside the estate as a private investigator who had been hired by Gionis or his attorneys to watch her. The child-custody battle was then under way, and the investigator had been following her for months, she said.

Police identified the investigator as O. Daniel Gal and went to his 25th-story suite in Century City to interview him. Gal confirmed that he had been watching Wayne but said he knew nothing about the attack, according to Jackson. Gal denied that he had employed someone with a limp.

Gionis Referred Queries to Attorney

Jackson said that as a matter of routine, he decided to interview Gionis, but Gionis seemed to be ducking him by referring all queries to his attorney. Jackson said he decided to keep both Gal and Gionis in mind as potential suspects.

The investigation, however, was getting broader, not narrower, Jackson said. Wayne was in an emotional dispute with her former husband, which could provide a motive for an attack.

But Luby, a real estate financier, was in a high-stakes fight over an office development, which could also have brought professional hit men onto the scene, Jackson said.

Jackson and his team of investigators--Sgt. Richard Long and detectives John Desmond, Jim Coe and Mark Fisher--began searching the complicated paper jungle surrounding Luby’s transactions with more than 30 savings and loan associations for clues to any trouble. Search warrants and subpoenas yielded thousands of pages of documents for examination.

“It was just a mountainous task,” Jackson said, “but you’ve got to check every lead.”

All eventually turned out to be dead ends.

Break in Case

Gal’s name did not resurface as a serious suspect until November, when Jackson got a break. Jackson was chatting with friends in the Los Angeles Police Department when one said he knew Gal well. Gal had, in fact, employed a man with a bad leg, the officer said, but he could not provide a name or description.

Jackson began “nosing around” among Gal’s associates. He had learned only that the limping man’s name was Jerry when Gal telephoned from Europe, demanding to know why Jackson was looking for him.

“I said I knew he had lied to me,” Jackson recalled. “He said he hadn’t seen the guy with a limp in 2 years and couldn’t remember his name, but he may have information in his office files.”

Jackson said his suspicions had grown to the point that he obtained a warrant and searched Gal’s office. There he found the name of Jerrel Hintergardt and phone records showing that Gal had phoned from his car to Hintergardt’s Burbank home seven times on the day of the attack.

Other phone records showed that right after a call from Gal, Hintergardt had telephoned a number in Simi Valley.

Call at 5:30 A.M. Mystified Police

“This was at 5:30 a.m.,” Jackson said. “We wondered why anybody would call anybody at 5:30 in the morning.”

Jackson said Wayne and Luby were shown a lineup of photographs and identified Hintergardt as one of their attackers--the one who had bound them, had slammed their heads against the concrete garage floor, had cut Luby’s Achilles’ tendon, had done all the talking.

On March 17, police arrested Hintergardt, 37, on suspicion of conspiracy and assault with a deadly weapon. Police said he had been an apartment manager but was unemployed. Because of a motorcycle accident, he has a artificial leg and walks with a limp. He had worked for Gal occasionally and had dated Gal’s sister, police said.

Police turned their attention to the Simi Valley home that Hintergardt had telephoned the day of the attack. It turned out to be the home of Jeffrey Kendall Bouey, 35, a friend of Hintergardt’s who is married, has two children and works at odd jobs, mainly cleaning swimming pools. Neighbors said Bouey did occasional surveillance work for a man with a limp, Jackson said.

Second Attacker Identified

Wayne and Luby were shown more photographs. They identified Bouey as the second attacker, the one who, Jackson said, had done little more than hold Wayne down. Newport detectives alerted Simi Valley police, who arrested Bouey at his home March 24.

Jackson said there is little doubt in his mind that Gal is heavily involved. Investigators obtained a warrant for Gal’s arrest and asked Interpol to find and arrest him. As of late Wednesday, Gal was still at large.

Investigators then concentrated on what role Gionis had played. Jackson said he subpoenaed Gionis’ financial records and found that while the doctor paid Gal $65,000 from March to September, 1988, the greatest part--$40,000--was paid in two installments about a month before the attack.

What Jackson described as “the clincher in the case” occurred Thursday, when investigators seized Gionis’ phone records and began analyzing them. They revealed that Gionis had made four calls to Gal on the day of the attack--one of them to Gal’s car phone at a time witnesses said they had seen Gal near Luby’s estate.

Then investigators, who had been proceeding deliberately on the assumption that Gionis would not flee, became alarmed by other telephone calls Gionis had made.

‘Numerous Calls to Greece’

“We found numerous calls to Greece, where Gionis has family,” Jackson said. “We checked with the State Department to see if he had obtained a passport, and sure enough he had--in January.

“What really concerned us was that he had obtained one for Anastasia during March,” Jackson said.

Investigators decided to make the arrest immediately. “We didn’t want to lose the child, let alone let him flee prosecution,” Jackson said.

Gionis was arrested outside his home in Pomona on Tuesday night. He is due in Harbor Municipal Court today. His attorney said he will ask that a reasonable bail be set, and the prosecutor is expected to demand that Gionis be held in jail.