Jerrel Hintergardt

In a dramatic turnaround, a Burbank man admitted on the witness stand Thursday that he led an attack on John Wayne's daughter and her former boyfriend in Newport Beach 19 months ago. Jerrel Lee Hintergardt, 38, denied in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, however, that he personally beat up Aissa Wayne. He also denied prosecutors' claims that the attack was ordered by Wayne's ex-husband, Dr. Thomas A.

In a dramatic turnaround, Jerrel Lee Hintergardt admitted on the witness stand today that he was responsible for the Oct. 3, 1988, attack on John Wayne's daughter and her former boyfriend in Newport Beach. Hintergardt's lawyer, Todd A. Landgren, told jurors in his opening statement that his client was at the Veteran's Hospital having work done on his artificial left foot at the time of the morning attack on Aissa Wayne and financier Roger W. Luby at Luby's estate.

Pomona surgeon Thomas A. Gionis will stand trial in the fall along with one of the men he allegedly directed to attack ex-wife Aissa Wayne in an attempt to gain custody of their daughter, according to two rulings in court Friday. At his arraignment in Superior Court in Santa Ana, Gionis entered a plea of not guilty to charges that he masterminded the Oct. 3 attack. Judge Myron S. Brown set an Oct. 31 trial date. And at a separate hearing, Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald--over the objections of defense attorney F. Lee Bailey--decided that Gionis should be tried on assault charges along with Jerrel L. Hintergardt, 37, of Burbank.

A Superior Court judge Friday rejected arguments that John Wayne's name is so legendary in Orange County that the men accused of assaulting his daughter and her boyfriend could not get a fair trial here. "Everybody in the U.S. knows John Wayne," said Judge Leonard H. McBride. "A celebrity's notoriety is not necessarily carried over to his offspring." The change-of-venue motion was made by lawyers for Thomas A.

An Orange County Superior Court jury Monday convicted a Pomona physician of masterminding an assault on his ex-wife--the daughter of the late John Wayne--and her then-boyfriend during a bitter child custody fight in 1988. Dr. Thomas Gionis, 38, faces a maximum of eight years in prison when he is sentenced June 12.

A judge Friday ordered Pomona physician Thomas A. Gionis held without bail pending his criminal trial for allegedly ordering an attack on his ex-wife, Aissa Wayne, and her boyfriend, millionaire financier Roger Luby. Harbor Municipal Judge Russell A. Bostrom ruled that Gionis, 35, an orthopedic surgeon, poses a danger of flight and a threat to Wayne, 32, daughter of the late actor John Wayne, if released.

One of the men accused of beating John Wayne's daughter and her boyfriend testified Tuesday that he was hired by a private investigator who told him that a doctor client involved in a child custody battle wanted to "teach his wife a lesson." Jeffrey Kendall Bouey, 35, of Simi Valley, said the investigator never mentioned by name Aissa Wayne's ex-husband, Pomona surgeon Thomas A. Gionis, who is charged with masterminding the Oct. 3 attack against Wayne, 32, and Roger W. Luby, 53, at Luby's Newport Beach estate.

The ex-husband of John Wayne's daughter was sentenced Monday to five years in prison for masterminding an attack that a judge said went "way beyond what a normal husband would do in a divorce situation." Dr. Thomas Gionis, 38, appeared calm as he was sentenced for soliciting the beating in which two hired thugs bound Aissa Wayne, 36, and slammed her face into a garage floor on Oct. 3, 1988. Gionis and Wayne were locked in a bitter custody battle at the time.

Standing in front of two long lists of telephone records, a prosecutor Wednesday told jurors the documents will help show that it was Dr. Thomas A. Gionis who put out the order that resulted in two "lugheads" beating up the doctor's ex-wife, Aissa Wayne, and her then-boyfriend two years ago. Gionis had put out the word to a private investigator, Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans said, that he wanted "to teach his wife a lesson."

Aissa Wayne took the witness stand Wednesday at the trial of her ex-husband, Dr. Thomas A. Gionis, to describe for jurors the beating she and a boyfriend suffered two years ago in Newport Beach. But once that short narration ended, Wayne, the daughter of John Wayne, spent the next two hours immersed in cross-examination about the bitter battle that she fought with Gionis over custody of their daughter, who was almost 2 years old at the time of the assault.