Bail Revoked, Gionis Jailed for 1988 Attacks : Courts: The Irvine doctor was free pending appeal of conviction for his role in the beating of estranged wife Aissa Wayne and a friend in 1988. The state Supreme Court reinstated the 1992 conviction last week.

Nearly three years after his conviction, surgeon Thomas Gionis was taken into custody to serve a five-year sentence for hiring two thugs to attack his estranged wife, the daughter of the late actor John Wayne.

The arrest Monday came hours after a judge abruptly revoked Gionis’ $2-million bail, which had kept him out of prison while he appealed his 1992 conviction. But the California Supreme Court dealt a critical blow to Gionis’ hopes last week when justices tossed out a lower court’s findings of improper testimony by an attorney and prosecutorial misconduct during trial.

The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana still has to settle some remaining issues in Gionis’ appeal, but authorities said they feared he might flee after losing last week’s crucial legal battle. Orange County Superior Court Judge Theodore E. Millard agreed Monday to revoke Gionis’ bail, and the Irvine physician was booked into Orange County Jail several hours later.

“The risk that Dr. Gionis might flee . . . was substantial,” said Deputy State Atty. Gen. Rhonda Cartwright-Ladendorf. “I would assume he was a little shocked.”

Cartwright-Ladendorf said it could take months for the appeals court to decide the remaining challenges, which were part of the original appeal but were not addressed when the panel reversed Gionis’ conviction last year. Gionis probably will be transferred to the state prison in Chino for processing, but it was unclear when that would happen, Cartwright-Ladendorf said.

Gionis, who lives with his current wife in Irvine and works at a Norwalk hospital, was sentenced to five years in prison for arranging an assault on Aissa Marie Wayne and her friend Roger Luby at Luby’s Newport Beach estate in October, 1988.

Luby said he was pleased it took just days to revoke Gionis’ bail.

“I’m glad justice prevailed. I still resent the length of time that Aissa and myself were tortured,” Luby said Tuesday. “I don’t want to dance on anyone’s grave, but nonetheless, I deserve it after 6 1/2 years.”

Wayne said her happiness over knowing her ex-husband was behind bars was tempered by knowing that it may be years before their daughter, Anastasia, now 8, will see her father again. “I have mixed emotions because of my daughter,” Wayne said.

Gionis’ attorney, William J. Kopeny, could not be reached for comment.

But Gionis’ mother bitterly criticized last week’s state Supreme Court decision and the sudden move to take her son into custody. She said authorities were playing favorites because Aissa Wayne is the daughter of a famous actor.

“They do anything they want to,” Bessie Gionis said. “My son is innocent. . . . They support the name--John Wayne’s daughter.”

On Tuesday, the blinds were drawn at the tan two-story townhouse Gionis shares with his wife, Susan. The only sign of the family was a gold-colored Jaguar registered to Gionis’ mother.

“I Love My Anastasia,” reads the front license-plate frame.

Thomas Gionis and Wayne were locked in a custody dispute in 1988 over Anastasia when the attack occurred.

Wayne was tied up and thrown face-first onto a garage floor, causing head injuries. The two attackers pistol-whipped Luby and severed his Achilles’ tendon with a knife.

Gionis was linked to the attack by a telephone call he made to a private investigator who associated with the two assailants.

Gionis was tried twice. The first jury deadlocked and the second convicted him after a family law lawyer testified about incriminating statements Gionis made to him more than a year before the attack.

Those statements were part of the reason for the reversal. The appeals court said the testimony violated attorney-client privilege. But the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling Gionis was not covered because the attorney already had refused to represent him at the time of the remarks. The Supreme Court also rejected the portion of the lower court’s reversal that said the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct. In a stinging rebuke, the lower court had said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoffrey L. Robinson’s closing arguments amounted to “vitriolic rebuttal and personal attacks” on Gionis’ defense lawyer Bruce Cutler, a flamboyant attorney who represented New York mob boss John Gotti.

But the Supreme Court majority said there was nothing improper about Robinson’s remarks, which included quotations from Shakespeare, the Bible and Danish proverbs attacking lawyers.

In a recent interview, Robinson reacted carefully to the decision backing his work.

“I don’t think personal bias should be injected in a public appellate opinion--or a newspaper article,” said Robinson, now a private attorney practicing civil law. “I strongly have believed from the beginning that regardless of the minor acrimony that occurred in that trial . . . that justice was still served and the defendant received a fair trial.”

Times staff writer Lee Romney contributed to this story.

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Gionis’ Lengthy Criminal Case

Some key dates in the saga of Dr. Thomas Gionis, convicted of hiring thugs to assault his estranged wife, Aissa Wayne, daughter of the late John Wayne, and her boyfriend Roger Luby.

1988

* Oct. 3: Returning from a morning jog, Aissa Wayne and her financier boyfriend, Roger Luby, are bound and pistol-whipped by two gunmen at Luby’s Newport Beach home.

1989

* April 4: Gionis is arrested on suspicion of conspiracy in the assault.

* April 21: Municipal Judge Susanne S. Shaw orders Gionis to stand trial.

1990

* Nov. 28: Prosecution begins opening arguments.

* Dec. 20: Mistrial declared when jury is unable to reach verdict.

1992

* April 21: Gionis retrial begins.

* May 11: Jury finds Gionis guilty of four felony counts.

* July 6: Gionis sentenced to five years in prison but remains free on $2-million bail.

1994

* Feb. 17: 4th District Court of Appeal throws out conviction, citing improper testimony by an attorney and prosecutorial misconduct.

* March 28: State attorney general’s office asks California Supreme Court to review decision reversing conviction.

1995

* May 4: Supreme Court finds no basis for reversal, in effect reinstating Gionis’ conviction.

* May 8: Gionis is arrested.

Source: Times reports