Jury hits Slemons, others for $18M; heere's Johnny!

Bad news for the ex-Mercedes Man: After five months of sometimes heated proceedings laced with allegations of money-laundering, loan-sharking and double-crossing, a Santa Ana jury 10 days ago found that former OC Mercedes dealer Jim Slemons had conspired with Newport Beach real estate financier Chuck Horning, Horning's Newport Federal Financial, son Chad Horning, and Costa Mesa lawyer Francis K. Friedemann to fraudulently hide Slemons' assets from former business partner Roger Riddell. Riddell, a Los Angeles ad exec who lives in Huntington Beach, had been unable to collect a $900,000 fraud award against Slemons stemming from the 1987 failure of their Resort Commuter Airlines. The latest jury, with the blessing of Superior Court Judge David A. Thompson, awarded Riddell $1.8 million in actual damages and $16 million in punitive damages. Riddell's lawyer Gary A. Dapelo (Good, Wildman, Hegness & Walley in Newport Beach) spent several years tracing a money trail that went through shell corporations, an offshore company and Swiss bank accounts, outlasting lawyers who were hired and fired by the defendants. He is now attaching assets that include Slemons/Horning vacation homes in Big Bear, Catalina, Maui and Rancho Mirage. Dapelo called Slemons both a perpetrator and a victim, because the guys who held Slemons' assets for him decided to keep them. "You screwed me. You took everything I have, everything I owned," Slemons shouted at the other defendants from the witness stand. The Hornings issued a statement that said in part; "We are disappointed with the decision of the jury, and believe that the allegations against our company and us personally are without merit. We are confident that the judgment will be overturned when the litigation is finally concluded." No comment from Slemons' attorney as of press time ... Two Gray Davis sightings last week-Monday night at a fundraiser at Bowers Museum, Wednesday afternoon with a small group in the lobby lounge of the Ritz Carlton Dana Point ... Star Watch: Johnny Carson is winding down his company operations and shifting what remains of them from an office in Santa Monica to the Fullerton home of nephew Jeff Sotzing, according to Esquire magazine, which has a long profile of the 76-- year-old "Tonight Show" legend in its June issue ... Fire marshal's nightmare: NAIOP's Fight Night sold out for a sixth straight year. An extra 100 people were shoe-homed into the Hyatt Regency Irvine's smoke-filled ballroom last week, forming a record crowd of 1,000 ... Laguna Beach resident and "Dateline NBC" correspondent Keith Morrison will play himself in the CHOC Follies, May 17-19. Call [phone] ... EE RR's relentless search for others who turn 50 this year has uncovered real estate consultant Bruce Lehman, who was turned in by a former colleague at The Irvine Company.