Wayne Suspect Confesses in Dramatic Turnaround

In a dramatic turnaround, Jerrel Lee Hintergardt admitted on the witness stand today that he was responsible for the Oct. 3, 1988, attack on John Wayne’s daughter and her former boyfriend in Newport Beach.

Hintergardt’s lawyer, Todd A. Landgren, told jurors in his opening statement that his client was at the Veteran’s Hospital having work done on his artificial left foot at the time of the morning attack on Aissa Wayne and financier Roger W. Luby at Luby’s estate. Then Landgren spent two days putting on numerous witnesses to support the alibi defense--including a neighbor of Hintergardt’s who was adamant he had driven him to the hospital that morning.

Luby and Wayne both suffered serious facial injuries, and Luby’s right Achilles’ tendon was slashed after two gunmen approached them inside Luby’s garage. He and Wayne had just returned from a health club, and the gunmen had walked in from the street before the security gate to Luby’s estate closed behind them.

Hintergardt admitted the attack on Luby and admitted handcuffing both of them on the floor of the garage. But he denied ever striking Wayne, who testified he bashed her face into the concrete floor twice while telling her: “You’re (messing) with the wrong people.”

Prosecutors contend that Wayne’s ex-husband, Dr. Thomas Gionis, set up the attack, through a private investigator, O. Daniel Gal. But Hintergardt told that jurors he had only been told by Gal that Luby was a major drug dealer who needed to be intimidated.

Law enforcement officials have said they have no indication that Luby was involved in drug dealing.

Hintergardt, 38, said he never intended to hurt anyone, but that “things just got out of control.”

Hintergardt testified that he and the other gunman, Jeffrey K. Bouey, were only going to scare Luby into thinking that someone was on to him about his “drug” business. But when Luby laughed and didn’t seem to take them seriously, Hintergardt said, he struck Luby to let him know they meant business.

He denied assaulting Wayne.

“I don’t think there is ever an excuse for violence against a woman,” Hintergardt said. “She was meaningless, a strawberry.” When Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan asked him to repeat “strawberry,” the defendant explained the word means a drug dealer’s woman.