Decision Near on Whether Gionis Will Be Tried in Wayne Attack

Lawyers delivered closing arguments Thursday in a preliminary hearing to determine whether Pomona surgeon Thomas A. Gionis should be bound over for trial on charges he masterminded an attack on his former wife, Aissa Wayne, and her then-boyfriend.

Harbor Municipal Judge Susanne S. Shaw, who is presiding over the case, is expected to make a decision today after hearing renewed arguments from Gionis’ lawyers that he be freed on bail in the event he is bound over for trial in Orange County Superior Court. Gionis, 35, whom authorities consider a flight risk, has remained in custody without bail since his arrest April 4.

In his closing arguments, Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans said that Gionis had sufficient motive to orchestrate the Oct. 3 attack against Wayne, 33, and financier Roger W. Luby, 53, at Luby’s gated Newport Beach estate. Gionis has denied the charges.

Gionis could have acted out of spite, Evans said, because he was angered by a protracted court battle over custody of the couple’s daughter, Anastasia. The wealthy surgeon spent about $500,000 in legal fees to win custody of the 2-year-old girl in February, according to court testimony. He has since lost custody to Wayne pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings against him.

Gionis could also have acted because he was afraid he would otherwise lose the custody case, Evans said. Court testimony has shown that Gionis lost “10 to 20” of the 50 pretrial motions in his custody case, despite his attorneys’ assertions they were confident of victory. Gionis made Anastasia’s safety while in Wayne’s custody an issue during the 2-month custody trial that began Nov. 29.

“Dr. Gionis has a wonderful motive to ‘do’ both of these people,” Evans said.

Evidence also points overwhelmingly to the orthopedic surgeon, Evans argued.

First, Gionis paid his private investigator $40,000 over a 2-week period just a month before the attack, Evans said. That amount was “100% more” than the $25,000 that Gionis had paid to investigator O. Daniel Gal of Beverly Hills during the previous 6 months, Evans said.

Then, Gionis provided Gal a floor plan of Wayne’s Corona del Mar home, where court testimony has shown the attack was originally intended to take place. Although defense attorneys have argued the floor plan was provided only for routine surveillance of Wayne, Evans asked, “Why is Dr. Gionis giving floor plans unless they (hired thugs) are going inside the house?”

Evans said that telephone calls between Gal and Gionis on the day of the attack, as well as between Gal and the two men he allegedly hired to carry it out, show that the surgeon was being kept informed every step of the way.

The men Gal allegedly hired, Jerrel L. Hintergardt, 37, an unemployed apartment manager from Burbank, and Jeffrey Kendall Bouey, 35, a swimming pool cleaner from Simi Valley, remained in Orange County Jail on Thursday on charges of assault with a deadly weapon. Gal, 32, is in custody in Switzerland on criminal conspiracy charges and is being extradited back to Newport Beach. All three men have bonds of $1 million each.

In his arguments, F. Lee Bailey, lead attorney for Gionis, maintained that his client had nothing to gain by directing an attack on his ex-wife and everything to lose. Bailey said that Gionis’ custody case was airtight and that he was confident of winning custody. Risking a criminal charge by the bungling of men who carried out the attack could only have jeopardized his chances of winning custody, Bailey said. The men bungled by not wearing masks and by lingering in Luby’s “ritzy” neighborhood, he said.

“There is no conceivable benefit to Dr. Gionis, no matter how you slice it,” Bailey said.

Bailey suggested, instead, that Luby was the intended victim and that Gal acted alone or in concert with angered investors from a failed real estate deal that ultimately forced Luby to declare bankruptcy.

Although Wayne, Luby and Bouey all testified this week that the attack was directed against Wayne, not Luby, Bailey accused all three witnesses of “felonious” lies. Bailey pointed to discrepancies between statements the witnesses gave police, in which they all mention Luby as a possible target of the attack, and court testimony in which they all disavowed saying any such thing.

Bailey suggested that the district attorney’s office has gone so far as trying to help Wayne’s custody case by having Bouey testify that, as a father of two young sons, he empathized with Wayne’s desire to be with her child.

“If you knock Dr. Tom out of circulation, you win the custody case,” Bailey said. “That is exactly what is going on.”

Bailey said the phone calls prove only that Gionis communicated with his private investigator a lot. And he said the payments to Gal signified only that Gionis was settling accounts with the investigator toward the end of a 7-month surveillance of Wayne for the custody case.

Of the state’s case, Bailey summarized: “If you rap on a piece of wood, you’ll find it hollow.”