Suspect Gives His Version of Attack on Wayne and Luby : Spotlight, as Usual, Is on Bailey

F. Lee Bailey. The name alone has sent waves of excitement reverberating through Newport Beach’s Harbor Municipal Courthouse, where clerks, lawyers and curiosity seekers have filed into Division 12 this week to sneak a peek at The Master at work.

Holding glasses in hand, leaning over the lectern to make a point and almost never referring to notes, the dapper Bailey--one of the nation’s most famous trial lawyers--has held a packed courtroom audience transfixed since he began representing Pomona surgeon Thomas A. Gionis in his preliminary hearing on charges that he ordered an Oct. 3 assault against his ex-wife, Aissa Wayne, and her then-boyfriend, Roger W. Luby.

While the charge that the wealthy surgeon arranged an attack on the daughter of the late actor John Wayne is sensational in itself, Bailey’s celebrity has drawn the attention of both spectators and participants in the hearing that began Monday.

On Tuesday, when Bailey spent 3 1/2 hours questioning the credibility of Jeffrey Kendall Bouey, an alleged participant in the attack who has turned state’s witness, spectators watched in awe as the 55-year-old lawyer poked and jabbed and tore at the increasingly rattled witness. Bailey zeroed in at one point, when the soft-spoken Bouey tried to explain that he participated in the attack because he needed the money.

“To get what you want you were willing to . . . stick a pistol in a woman’s face,” Bailey thundered, glaring at the witness. Bouey looked away in silence.

Bailey has been equally tough in attacking the credibility of more refined witnesses such as Luby, a Newport Beach millionaire who took the stand Monday to recount the attack. Luby, looking tan and fit in an expensive blue suit, blanched visibly when Bailey, trying to connect the attack to Luby’s financial problems, said, “If he (Luby) was into some loan sharks, this court should know about it.”

Bailey has earned grudging respect even from his opponent in the case, Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans, who called the defense attorney “a good lawyer, a great lawyer.”

‘He’s on His Way’

But such respect for a lawyer who has defended newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, “Boston Strangler” Albert DeSalvo and wife-killer Dr. Sam Sheppard has not prevented either Evans or Harbor Municipal Court Judge Susanne S. Shaw from chastising him.

Evans and Bailey clashed early Tuesday, for example, when Bailey referred to Bouey as a “felon.”

“Your honor, he is no felon. He has not been convicted,” Evans cried indignantly.

Bailey retorted: “Well, he’s on his way.”

Evans shot back, stabbing a finger at the sitting Gionis: “He’s on his way too.”

Shaw, who is known for interjecting levity into serious trial situations, upstaged Bailey several times. During Bouey’s testimony, for example, Bailey feigned a sudden hearing loss when the witness proclaimed he felt “disgusted” by his role in the attack.

“Disgusted?” Bailey repeated in a booming voice as though he had not heard correctly.

“Disgusted!” Shaw shouted back at Bailey, adding with a wry smile, “They say, Mr. Bailey, that the first thing that goes is the hearing.”

Shaw drew more laughter from the courtroom gallery Tuesday when she made an oblique reference to the wealth of Bailey, whose retainer fees reputedly can run into six figures. Although he is licensed to practice law only in Massachusetts, Bailey has practiced in 49 of the 50 states by joining local attorneys as co-counsel. He is also a prolific author and lecturer.

Bailey had been hammering away at an accountant who had been testifying for the prosecution about payments made by Gionis to a private investigator before the attack, payments that prosecutors contend were, in part, for the attack.

When accountant Chuck Bell told Bailey that he had found no receipt for the investigator taking a Lear jet to Arizona last summer to follow Wayne, as Bailey said the investigator had done, Bailey asked, “Do you know where Martin Aviation (at John Wayne Airport) is?” Bell said that he did not.

Then Shaw interjected: “That’s probably where Mr. Bailey’s (Lear jet) is parked.”

Finally, late in the day, the articulate Massachusetts-born attorney drew several raised eyebrows in the courtroom when he asked Bouey whether he had “remonstrated” with a friend for using a knife in the attack, which Bouey testified he did not like.

“What was that word?” Shaw asked with a grin, as Bouey looked on with puzzlement.

“Scold,” Bailey replied with a thin smile.

Bailey took the judge’s light criticism in stride. Outside the courtroom, he also brushed off his celebrity status, saying, “There are only two audiences that matter: the one behind the bench and the one in the jury box.”