Newport Police Feared Suspect Would Flee : Aissa Wayne’s Ex-Husband, Jailed in Attack, Had Passports, Europe Contacts, Officers Say

Newport Beach police said Wednesday that they arrested the wealthy Pomona physician accused of ordering an attack on his ex-wife, the daughter of actor John Wayne, because they feared that he was planning to flee the country.

Police said Thomas A. Gionis, an orthopedic surgeon, had been making telephone calls to Greece, where he has relatives, had obtained a passport for himself last January and last month obtained a passport for his 2-year-old daughter, Anastasia.

“We feared he would flee the country and take the child with him,” said Sgt. Mike Jackson, one of the investigators assigned to the case.

Gionis, 35, who owns a string of five clinics from Beverly Hills to Palm Springs, was involved in an unusually bitter child-custody battle with Aissa Wayne, 32, his former wife, when the attack occurred last October.

According to police, two men approached Wayne and her companion, financier Roger W. Luby, in the garage of Luby’s Newport Beach home, bound and beat them and slashed one of Luby’s Achilles’ tendons.

One of the attackers told Wayne: “You’re (messing) with the wrong guy. Next time, we kill you,” police have said.

Two men have been arrested within the last 3 weeks on suspicion of being the attackers. Police identified them as Jerrel L. Hintergardt, 37, an unemployed apartment manager from Burbank, and Jeffrey Kendall Bouey, 35, a swimming pool cleaner from Simi Valley.

An arrest warrant has been issued for a Century City private investigator, O. Daniel Gal, who worked on behalf of Gionis in the custody case and who police allege hired Hintergardt to make the attack. Hintergardt once worked for Gal’s investigation agency, police said.

Gal, who was interviewed by Newport Beach police after the attack, is believed to have fled to Europe. Newport police said Interpol, the international police agency headquartered in Paris, is trying to locate Gal for arrest and extradition.

Gionis was awarded custody of the couple’s child, Anastasia, after a hearing in which his lawyers argued that the attack on Wayne showed that the child would be endangered in Wayne’s custody. The judge, holding that both were fit parents, nevertheless criticized Wayne as being “emotionally immature.”

Wayne’s lawyer said Wednesday, however, that in light of Gionis’ arrest, he would try to reopen the custody case.

Three Newport Beach officers watched Gionis’ home in Pomona Tuesday night and arrested him when he drove up in his chauffeured limousine at 10:50 p.m., police said. Gionis was returning from a business trip to New York.

He was taken to Newport Beach City Jail, where he was held without bail on suspicion of conspiracy to commit assault with a deadly weapon.

Wayne said Wednesday that she was “shocked” by news of the arrest. “After everything Tom Gionis and I have gone through, I’m still shocked to think he could do something like that to me,” she said in an interview.

Luby said he was “pleased” and that his injuries are “98% healed.” He said that if Gionis ordered the attack on him as well as on Wayne, it was probably motivated by jealousy.

At a hearing in Harbor Municipal Court Wednesday afternoon, a solemn-faced Gionis entered an not guilty plea to the charges as his former wife and her mother, Pilar Wayne, looked on from the back of the courtroom.

Gionis did not acknowledge them, but mouthed “hi” to his father, Matthew Gionis, and his sister, Xanthia, who were seated in the courtroom. They had arrived earlier in Gionis’ limousine.

Gionis, wearing a white dress shirt and light-blue dress pants, appeared in court without handcuffs. He was flanked by armed bailiffs as photographers shot pictures.

Through his attorney, Byron K. McMillan, Gionis surrendered his and his daughter’s passports in hopes of persuading Municipal Judge Russell A. Bostrom to allow his release on bail.

Gionis was being held on a no-bail arrest warrant based on the statements by police that they believe Gionis might flee if released. Bostrom scheduled a bail hearing at 1:30 p.m. today. Gionis’ preliminary hearing was set for April 17.

Outside the courtroom, McMillan and Albert M. Graham Jr., a Santa Ana lawyer who represented Gionis in his divorce case, belittled the case against Gionis.

Police said records of Gionis’ telephones show that he called Gal four times from his limousine and his office on the day of the attack. The calls were made before and after the attack, and one was made to Gal’s car at the time police allege that Gal was parked outside Luby’s home.

Gionis’ bank records showed he had paid a total of $65,000 to Gal during the custody dispute, $40,000 of which was paid 2 weeks before the attack, police said.

McMillan insisted that Gionis is the victim of Gal, who was employed by Gionis’ attorney and not by Gionis. He said Gal tried to “shake down” Gionis for money before he fled to Europe.

He said Gionis’ arrest was outrageous because Gionis had offered to surrender whenever he was wanted. “They’re cowboys, just cowboys,” McMillan said of the police.

Graham said the police are stretching credibility when they connect the $40,000 that Gionis paid Gal with the attack itself. Graham said Gal had been retained to watch Wayne every day she had custody of the child. The surveillance went on for months, he noted.

“Add up what it takes to do that much surveillance, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day,” Graham said.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans, declined to comment on the Gionis case other than to compliment Newport Beach police on their “thorough investigation” and “excellent job.”

Times staff writer Lonn Johnston contributed to this story.