TORRANCE : Gettys Ordered to Pay $4 Million to Plane Broker

A jury has ruled that the multimillionaire son and daughter-in-law of the late oil baron J. Paul Getty must pay a Torrance aircraft brokerage firm almost $4 million in damages for withholding a $432,500 commission on the purchase of a luxury Boeing 727.

Figures in the 2 1/2-week trial included members of one of America’s wealthiest families, an aircraft broker whose clients have included Frank Sinatra, John F. Kennedy and Sammy Davis Jr., and a lawyer and business adviser to the Gettys who served as assistant treasury secretary in the Reagan Administration.

The trial also provided a glimpse of the wealth of Gordon Getty, one of J. Paul Getty’s five sons, and Ann Getty, Gordon Getty’s wife. Although financial papers were submitted to the court under seal, Superior Court Judge Bob T. Hight told jurors that Gordon Getty’s net worth was $323 million and that Ann Getty’s was $23 million.

After about three hours of deliberation Thursday, the jury found that in 1986 Ann and Gordon Getty conspired to cheat broker Landis Carr, retired head of aircraft sales for the Garrett Corp., out of a commission after Carr found them an $8.6-million 727 that the Revlon Corp. had put up for sale.