Aissa Wayne Files Suit Against Attack Suspects

Charging that she was the victim of terror and intimidation, Aissa Wayne on Monday sued a Los Angeles private detective and two men who allegedly attacked her and a companion in Newport Beach last fall in connection with Wayne’s attempts to get custody of her daughter.

Wayne, the daughter of film legend John Wayne, also is suing ex-husband Thomas Gionis, the Pomona surgeon who allegedly orchestrated the attack. Wayne and financier Roger Luby were bound, threatened and assaulted by a pair of intruders at Luby’s Newport Beach mansion on Oct. 3, 1988.

Gionis and the three men named in the civil suit filed Monday in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana--detective O. Daniel Gal, Jerrel Lee Hintergardt, and Jeffrey K. Bouey--are all awaiting criminal proceedings in connection with the assault.

At Gionis’ instructions, Gal allegedly trailed Wayne and hired Hintergardt and Bouey to carry out the attack on her, prosecutors assert. Prosecutors charge that Gionis intended the attack as a warning to his ex-wife in their bitter dispute over custody of their daughter, Anastasia.

A Superior Court judge granted Gionis custody of the child early this year, finding that Wayne was “emotionally immature.” But that order was rescinded and Wayne was given temporary custody after the criminal allegations against Gionis were revealed.

The lawsuit filed Monday also names as defendants George J. Stephan, who has represented Gionis in some of his legal battles, and Stephan’s employer, the Los Angeles law firm of Wood, Lucksinger and Epstein. The suit seeks damages based on allegations of terror, assault, battery, false imprisonment, wrongful interference with parental relationship and negligence.