Trial of Gionis in Assault on Wayne, Luby Nears Finish

The second trial of a Pomona physician accused of masterminding an assault on John Wayne’s daughter and her then-boyfriend neared a conclusion Tuesday as a flamboyant New York defense attorney filled the courtroom’s spectator section beyond capacity.

Prosecution and defense attorneys delivered closing arguments in the case of Dr. Thomas Gionis, who is charged with conspiracy and assault in the Oct. 3, 1987, attack on his estranged wife, Aissa Wayne, and her then-boyfriend, Roger Luby, at Luby’s Newport Beach compound.

During the first trial, jurors deadlocked 9 to 3 for Gionis’ conviction. The two men who carried out the assaults, in which Luby had his leg slashed and Wayne had her face slammed into a concrete garage floor, have admitted their roles in the attack.

Prosecutors charge that Gionis, 38, ordered the attack through his private investigator, who hired the two men, because the surgeon was embittered by a custody fight with Wayne over their young daughter.

With every seat in the spectator section filled and a handful of others standing in the antechamber and corridor--the latter watching the proceedings on a television monitor--attorneys for both sides reviewed their cases for the jury. The television monitor belonged to the cable television service Court TV, which has been taping the proceedings for later broadcast.

Defense attorney Bruce Cutler, best known for representing New York mobster John Gotti, hammered away at the prosecution.

At times, both attorneys acknowledged that there might be some confusion as to who is on trial.

Cutler continued to pound away at Wayne and Luby, as if they were defendants, shortly after telling jurors that “this is not the Aissa Wayne case; this is the Tom Gionis case.”

Saying “it’s not a crime just to hang around and enjoy yourself,” Cutler nonetheless added that Wayne and Luby were representative of people who “don’t care about anything but themselves,” people who are “lazy and indulgent.”

Cutler referred to Luby at least half a dozen times as “Uncle Roger,” saying he shed “crocodile tears” on the witness stand and then recovered sufficiently to describe the defense attorney as “Don Rickles on steroids.”

Witnesses who gave damaging testimony against Gionis were described by Cutler alternately as “a dirty, rotten scoundrel” and liars.

In his closing remarks, which will continue this morning, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoffrey L. Robinson leaned heavily on telephone records documenting numerous phone calls between Gionis and his private investigator, Oded Dan Gal, including a flurry of calls between the two on the day of the attack.

Citing numerous checks, Robinson pointed out that Gionis had paid Gal more than $75,000, much of it around the period of the attack.