Clash of Bay Club titans ends
June Casagrande
NEWPORT BEACH -- The last of four lawsuits over a botched deal to
purchase the Balboa Bay Club has been settled, ending a pitched battle
between a longtime member of the exclusive club and its owner.
After two days in the courtroom trial over the aborted $73.5-million
transaction, former Orange County Chief Executive William Popejoy and Bay
Club owner Beverly Ray reached a settlement that brought the trial to an
early close.
“All matters in the dispute have been settled,” Ron Rus, attorney for
Popejoy, said in a prepared statement. “We are happy all the matters have
been resolved without further court proceedings.”
Terms of the settlement, Rus said, are confidential.
Ray’s suit against Popejoy, which alleged that he had issued
statements damaging to her, was dismissed by the court after the first
day of testimony.
Ray is out of town. She and other Bay Club officials could not be
reached or would not comment for this story.
In October 1999, Popejoy, a financier who stepped in to run county
government during the crisis of the mid-1990s bankruptcy and later the
California Lottery, began assembling investors to purchase the famed
club.
But by June 2000, the deal had fallen through, and Popejoy and Ray
both took to court their claim that the other was responsible for the
aborted sale.
Popejoy alleged that Ray and Balboa Bay Club executive David Wooten
conspired and defrauded him out of the chance to buy the property. Wooten
and Ray accused Popejoy and his colleagues of using inappropriate tactics
in the deal.
The dispute worsened when Popejoy filed a lawsuit accusing Wooten of
slander, based on remarks the Balboa Bay Club executive made to the Daily
Pilot.
Ray, too, sued Popejoy for allegedly harmful comments made during the
proceedings.
Last week’s settlement agreement brings to a close the last of the
lawsuits over the transaction attempt.
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