Swiss Police Arrest Fourth Suspect in Wayne-Luby Attack

A Century City private investigator who allegedly hired two men to rough up John Wayne’s daughter and her companion has been arrested in Switzerland, Newport Beach police said Thursday.

O. Daniel Gal, 32, was arrested by Swiss police earlier this week on a provisional warrant issued by Interpol, the international police agency. Newport Beach authorities said Gal would be brought back to California within 60 days to face charges of criminal conspiracy to commit assault with a deadly weapon.

Newport Beach Police Lt. Tim Newman said Gal was arrested sometime between Monday and Wednesday by the Swiss, but it was not immediately known where in Switzerland he was taken into custody.

“We just got this much from the Justice Department,” Newman said. “We will know more later. All we know now is they got him.”

Gal is the fourth and final person to be arrested in connection with the Oct. 3 assault on Aissa Wayne and financier Roger Luby at Luby’s Newport Beach estate. Police have accused Wayne’s former husband, Dr. Thomas A. Gionis of Pomona, of masterminding the attack by two pistol-carrying intruders because of a bitter dispute over the custody of the couple’s 2-year-old daughter, Anastasia.

According to police, two men surprised Wayne and Luby in the garage of Luby’s home, bound and beat them and slashed one of Luby’s Achilles’ tendons. Before leaving, one of the attackers turned to Wayne and said: “You’re (messing) with the wrong guy. Next time, we kill you.”

Gionis, an orthopedic surgeon, pleaded innocent to a single conspiracy charge and is being held in Orange County Jail without bail. He is scheduled to appear in Orange County Superior Court today for a hearing to appeal a decision denying him bail.

The two men who allegedly carried out the attack, Jerrel L. Hintergardt, 37, of Burbank and Jeffrey Kendall Bouey, 35, of Simi Valley, also remain jailed with bail set at $1 million each.

Court records show that Gionis hired Gal’s firm last year when he and Wayne were going through an acrimonious divorce and custody fight over their daughter. Prosecutors claim that Gal eventually hired Hintergardt and Bouey to carry out the attack at Luby’s home.

Shortly after the attack, construction workers across the street from Luby’s estate told police that two men fitting the descriptions of Gal and Hintergardt were seen outside the Luby home the day of the attack.

In statements to investigators, Gal conceded he was outside Luby’s home that day but claimed he was there merely conducting routine surveillance on Wayne. He said he knew nothing of the attack.

Police said they closed in on Gal when they learned that Hintergardt had previously worked for Gal’s investigative agency, and a search warrant revealed that in the weeks before the attack, Gionis had paid Gal about $40,000.

By Feb. 14, when Newport Beach police went to Gal’s Century City offices to question him, Gal was in Europe.

At Gionis’ bail hearing, prosecutors introduced into evidence records suggesting that Gionis and Gal had exchanged messages through an intermediary as recently as February.

That evidence included a series of fax messages between Gal in Europe and his sister, Emmy, in Los Angeles, which prosecutors said included a discussion of how to handle Newport Beach police investigators.

In a Feb. 9 message, Gal’s sister wrote that she had “talked to Tom Gionis finally” and that Gionis had told her to have Gal contact him at his Upland office.

In another message, Gal advised his sister, “If (Newport Beach Police Sgt. Mike) Jackson talks to you, you don’t know where I am or when I’ll be back.”

Newport Beach police said Gal was arrested after confidential information placed him in either France or Switzerland. According to Newman, the local warrant was forwarded to the State Department, which then worked through the Justice Department to contact Interpol.

Staff writer Jim Carlton contributed to this report.