Gionis Faces Trial With Suspect in Wayne Attack

Pomona surgeon Thomas A. Gionis will stand trial in the fall along with one of the men he allegedly directed to attack ex-wife Aissa Wayne in an attempt to gain custody of their daughter, according to two rulings in court Friday.

At his arraignment in Superior Court in Santa Ana, Gionis entered a plea of not guilty to charges that he masterminded the Oct. 3 attack. Judge Myron S. Brown set an Oct. 31 trial date.

And at a separate hearing, Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald--over the objections of defense attorney F. Lee Bailey--decided that Gionis should be tried on assault charges along with Jerrel L. Hintergardt, 37, of Burbank.

Hintergardt, in custody on $1 million bail, is accused of helping carry out last fall’s attack on Wayne and financier Roger W. Luby at Luby’s Newport Beach home. He, too, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans argued that Gionis and Hintergardt should be tried together for the sake of legal expediency. “We don’t want to make the victims and the witnesses go through the same things many times,” he said in an interview. “We want to do it one time.”

But co-defense attorney Allan H.Stokke of Santa Ana said after the judge’s joint-trial ruling, “We think it’s prejudicial that Dr. Gionis is to be tried together with a man he’s never even met and had nothing to do with.”

Bailey, however, played down the importance of the ruling, saying that he thought a joint trial would hurt Hintergardt more than it would Gionis.

The nationally known defense attorney also said he is likely to ask that the trial be moved out of Orange County to allow his client to get a fair trial outside the glare of local publicity.

A second man implicated in the execution of the Wayne-Luby attack, Jeffrey K. Bouey, 35, of Simi Valley, has agreed to cooperate with authorities and has not yet undergone a preliminary hearing on the charges against him.

Beverly Hills private detective O. Daniel Gal, 32, whom Gionis allegedly paid to hire Hintergardt and Bouey and to coordinate the attack, remains in custody in Switzerland awaiting extradition.

Meanwhile, a judge has agreed to reopen the custody dispute over 2-year-old Anastasia that prosecutors say triggered the attack on the daughter of film legend John Wayne. The child is in the temporary custody of Wayne, with Gionis maintaining monitored visitation rights.