Newton’s daughter sues manager over trust fund

Bill Gang

Thursday, July 25, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The daughter of entertainer Wayne Newton has filed a lawsuit against her father's former manager, claiming he misappropriated nearly $400,000 from her trust account.

Twenty-year-old Erin Newton says in the lawsuit Wednesday filed by attorney Robert Murdock that Mark Moreno used his position as trustee of the account to "convert the funds for his own personal use."

Moreno is accused in the suit of taking money from the trust and transferring it to a Wayne Newton company, Flying Eagle Inc., to which he also had access.

Murdock said the trust was given "unauthorized" promissory notes committing Newton to repay the missing funds.

The funds finally would be transferred from Flying Eagle to Moreno or a person acting on his behalf, the legal action charged.

The lawsuit alleged that in June 1990 the trust fund established by deceased Newton family friend Walter Kane held $399,000 and two months later the amount had dwindled to $10,000.

Moreno resigned as trustee in November 1994. Attempts to reach Moreno were not successful. A number listed in the phone book for the attorney is no longer in service and the phone company had no new listing for him.

Moreno, Wayne Newton's trusted manager for years, has been engaged in legal disputes lately with his former boss, and Murdock said the lawsuit filed Wednesday is another segment of the feud.

"It's a tangled web here," Murdock said. "These are difficult cases with difficult parties and all intertwined."

The Erin Newton lawsuit, however, may go beyond the civil courts.

Murdock said he has been looking into the possibility of criminal charges against Moreno.

He added that since Moreno is a Nevada attorney, the State Bar Association also may be asked to look into the propriety of his actions involving the trust.

The conversion of funds, according to the lawsuit, "was done willfully, maliciously and oppressively with a reckless disregard for the rights of Erin Newton."

Because of that allegation, the lawsuit claims that punitive damages are warranted.

Newton has blamed much of his financial woes, including bankruptcy, on Moreno, whom he says mismanaged his business dealings and got him into failed gambling ventures in California and Colorado.

Moreno, meanwhile, has sued Wayne Newton, contending that the entertainer defrauded him out of an estimated $4 million.