Former O.C. Exec Popejoy Files Slander Suit Against Club Chief

Escalating the battle over the Balboa Bay Club, Newport Beach businessman William J. Popejoy filed a second lawsuit, this one for slander, against the private club’s managing executive.

Popejoy’s lawsuit, filed Friday in Orange County Superior Court, accuses David C. Wooten of defaming him in remarks made to a Daily Pilot reporter and published in the local newspaper June 2. Neither the reporter nor the Pilot, which covers Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, was named as a defendant.

The suit, which seeks unspecified punitive damages, alleges that Wooten told the Pilot reporter that Popejoy was trying to “extort” money from the private company that owns the club.

But Wooten’s lawyer, Chris Dubia, said Monday that his client’s comments to the Daily Pilot were simply a restatement of what an earlier lawsuit alleged.

The latest suit stems from fallout from a deal that had gone sour.

Popejoy, a former banker who became the county’s first chief executive after its 1994 bankruptcy, had proposed buying the club from owner Beverly Ray after she had asked him to put together a group of investors to make an offer. But as negotiations broke down, Popejoy sought to complete the deal or receive a $4 million settlement to forgo possible litigation.

On May 31, both sides sued each other. Popejoy alleged that Ray and Wooten conspired and defrauded him out of the chance to buy the property. Wooten and Ray accused Popejoy and his colleagues of subjecting them to “strong-arm tactics” and said in their suit that they “refused to be extorted” by his alleged effort to enhance the proposed sale for himself.

The Pilot is owned by the Los Angeles Times.