Blake Testifies in Wrongful Death Suit
By LINDA DEUTSCH
AP Special Correspondent

BURBANK, Calif. — Robert Blake took center stage during his first day of testimony in a wrongful death lawsuit, jousting verbally with the opposition lawyer and eliciting complaints from the judge for his aggressive style.

During colorful, sometimes contentious exchanges Thursday with the judge and the lawyer representing the family of Blake's slain wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, the actor acknowledged he may have given different versions of what happened on the night Bakley was shot to death.

But he said that was because he is "a human being, not a machine" and had simply erred.

Six months after being acquitted of murder in a jury trial, Bakley's children are suing Blake, saying he was responsible for their mother's May 2001 death. Bakley, 44, was killed as she sat in Blake's car outside a restaurant where they had just had dinner.

The star of the old "Baretta" TV show said he's dyslexic, cannot read documents and cited his age several times as a reason for his shifting memory.

"I'm 72 years old," Blake said repeatedly until Superior Court Judge David Schacter interrupted and said, "We already know that."

Blake frequently interjected his own objections to questions, leaving his lawyer, Peter Ezzell, to protest he wasn't being allowed to do his job.

Blake then would sustain his own objections, leading the judge to say the actor should let him do his job.

At one point, Schacter quipped that he should provide Blake with a judge's robe.

Jurors smiled at the exchanges.

When the children's attorney, Eric Dubin, accused Blake of telling lies to the police, the actor snapped, "Says who? Says who?"

As Bakley's two adult children, Holly and Glenn Gawron, sat at the counsel table facing him, Blake said he told authorities Bakley's relatives were "felons and low-lifes."

At one point Dubin asked Blake about his co-defendant and former handyman Earle Caldwell, who was initially part of the criminal case before charges against him were dropped.

"Would you say Caldwell, who was your handyman, had a hobby of murder?" asked Dubin.

"No," Blake shouted, "and whoever said that I will say they are rotten, foul liars to the core."

Most of Thursday's questioning focused on the daughter Blake had with Bakley, 5-year-old Rosie, who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The girl is being raised by Blake's adult daughter, Delinah.

Blake acknowledged he had a written agreement to marry Bakley after a DNA test showed the child was his.

"I came to the conclusion that the very best thing for Rosie, from the time she was 2 weeks old, was for us to get married," he said.


___

September 30, 2005 - 5:12 a.m. CDT

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/TV/Blake_Wife_Slain.html

Robert Blake denies plotting to kill his wife   
 
By Lisa Sweetingham
Court TV
BURBANK, Calif. — In a testy second day on the stand in his civil trial, Robert Blake admitted venting to friends about wanting to throw his wife out a window, but denied ever plotting her murder.

"Isn't it true that you had discussions with people about killing her while she was pregnant?" civil attorney Eric Dubin asked.

"False," Blake said.

"OK," Dubin said. "Let's start with William Welch."

Welch, a private investigator and former Los Angeles police detective, was one of four witnesses at Blake's criminal trial who said the actor asked for his help to murder Bonny Lee Bakley after she tricked him into getting her pregnant.

Welch also testified in the civil trial, now in its fifth week.

Welch said that Blake was so panicked about Bakley's pregnancy that he told Welch he had a plan: He would abduct her and hire a doctor to abort the baby, and if that didn't work, he would "whack" her.

Blake called his former friend a liar who spent too much time buddying up with detectives on the golf course and at weekly card games.

"He was a member of robbery homicide for 19 years and he mysteriously retired one year before his pension and nobody has ever found out why," Blake said. "I have only one or two facts that make me believe he may be in the cops' pockets."

"This is the first time you ever said this," Dubin said.

"There's a whole gang of stuff that I never said to you, boss, a whole gang of stuff," the actor said.

Bakley, 44, was shot twice in May 2001 by an unidentified gunman as she sat alone in Blake's sports car near an Italian restaurant where the couple shared their last meal together.

Prosecutors alleged that Blake, 72, killed Bakley to gain sole custody of their daughter, Rose Lenore Sophia Blake.

Blake was acquitted of murder charges in March and is now being sued by Bakley's four children for her wrongful death. They are asking for an unspecified amount of monetary damages and turned down a pretrial settlement offer of $250,000.

Although Blake initially wanted nothing to do with the child, he grew to love baby Rosie and claims he married Bakley in November 2000 to oversee Rosie's care.

Blake did not testify in his criminal trial and his time on the stand has been trying for attorneys and the judge. While he appeared more subdued Monday than in his gregarious appearance Thursday, he repeatedly apologized for speaking out of turn, he admonished his own attorney for not objecting to questions, and he shouted "Liar" or "That's a lie!" to several of Dubin's questions.

Dubin provoked the "Baretta" star when he suggested Blake was trying to convince jurors that cops paid Welch to lie under oath about the alleged plot to "whack" Bakley.

"Paid him?" Blake boomed, leaning into the microphone. "Don't put words in my mouth, junior."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Judge David Schacter said. "Look at me, Mr. Blake."

The judge, who asked Blake to put his "foot on the brake," indicated earlier that whenever he gave Blake a sideways glance that would be his cue to calm down and wait for the next question.

"Thank you, your honor," Blake replied.

Faking cancer

Blake met Bakley, a mail-order porn entrepreneur, at a jazz club in 1998 and their casual sexual relationship heated up after Bakley took fertility drugs but told Blake she taking birth-control pills.

Blake admitted Monday that he tried every trick in the book — cash, threats, even faking his own terminal illness — to get her to have an abortion.

"You faked getting cancer, didn't you?" Dubin asked.

At first, the actor denied it. But then Dubin read to him from a transcript of a phone conversation Bakley had recorded, in which Blake told her, "I have colon and prostate cancer they're trying to shrink it ... the treatments are a mother f---er."

"I could easily have said that," Blake conceded.

"Did you tell Bonny Lee Bakley that you had Alzheimer's?" Dubin asked.

"I don't know," Blake said.

"That's an interesting answer," the judge remarked, eliciting chuckles from jurors and Blake.

Blake conceded that he offered Bakley up to $250,000 to have an abortion, but she refused. He said he also called on his good friend, actor Marlon Brando — whose son Christian also had an affair with Bakley — and asked for Brando's help in convincing Bakley to have an abortion.

Blake denied, however, that he ever did anything illegal to get Bakley out of his life.

"Do you recall on several occasions telling William Welch to plant cocaine in Bonny Lee Bakley's hotel room and have him use his LAPD. connections to get her arrested?" Dubin asked.

"It's not possible to recall something that absolutely did not transpire," Blake said in a measured tone.

Robert Blake calling, and not calling

Blake was also asked about his phone friendship with mobster-turned-preacher Frank Minucci.

Minucci testified in the criminal trial that Blake asked him to come to Los Angeles to "do something really heavy" — namely, to kill his pregnant girlfriend.

Blake denied the accusation.

Minucci also said that Blake hired him to harass girlfriend Collette Duvall into changing her phone number, so the actor wouldn't be able to call her anymore.

"Collette Duvall is a woman, a friend of mine, that I met when I was about 50 years old, and for the next 15, 16 years we were on-and-off lovers and always friends," Blake said.

Duvall told Courttv.com in a Web chat earlier this year that Minucci terrorized her repeatedly over the phone with rape and violence but that she never learned if Blake was the one who set him on her.

"Is it true you contacted Frank Minucci about convincing her to change her phone number?" Dubin asked.

"No, that's not true," Blake said.

Blake also addressed lingering doubts about his own personal phone habits.

The actor previously told police that when he returned to his car to find Bakley shot, he knocked on several doors until he found someone at home who called 911.

But Blake knew that Bakley always carried her cellphone with her, and Dubin asked why he didn't use one of Bakley's phones to call 911.

"I know that she always had two, three cellphones in her purse, but I didn't check to see what she had that night," Blake said.

Blake has also stated that that he didn't know how to use a cellphone. Dubin reminded him of a recorded phone conversation with Bakley in the months before she was killed, in which he told her he was going to take a cellphone, get in his purple van, hit the road, and just roam until the Christmas holidays were over.

"I was lying if I told her I was going to take a cellphone," Blake said. "I probably wanted her to feel secure that she could probably get in touch with me, but I was lying."

Robert Blake's direct testimony will continue Wednesday when court resumes.
 
http://www.courttv.com/trials/blake/100305_ctv.html

Well now, maybe not, after this:

Robert Blake tells jurors his slain ex-wife was great for casual sex   
 
By Lisa Sweetingham
Court TV
BURBANK, Calif. — Robert Blake told jurors Thursday that he has three people inside him: the little boy who sleeps with a cap gun under his pillow; the swaggering teen who likes fast sports cars; and the old man who once enjoyed Bonny Lee Bakley's company because she was game for a little casual sex.

But none of them, the actor said, ever wanted to hurt Bakley.

"Did you hire anyone to shoot Bonny Bakley?" Blake's attorney Peter Ezzell asked.

"No," Blake said.

"Did you shoot Bonny Bakley?" Ezzell asked.

"No," the actor said.

Blake was previously acquitted of murder and conspiracy charges in the May 2001 shooting death of his 44-year-old wife.

He has spent the last four days on the stand in his civil wrongful death trial, offering his side of the strange and violent end to his relationship with Bakley, a mother of four and mail-order porn queen.

Bakley's eldest son, Glenn Gawron, sat quietly next to his attorney as Blake described his affair with Bakley, whom he met in 1999 at a jazz club in Burbank.

"I didn't have much of a life. I was very, very single — very much a loner. And there aren't many women who will simply just sleep with you and get back on the bus, if you know what I mean," Blake said. "With Bonny, pathetically, a part of me required that — that 'help me make it through the night and I'll see you later.'"

Gawron left briefly when two grainy snapshots of his mother posing in lingerie were projected in the courtroom.

One of the pictures was of a younger Bakley, posing in a sheer teddy that exposed her breasts and pubic area. Jurors appeared interested, but unmoved.

Blake said he had shown the photos to men he hired to look into his wife's past. Gawron believes Blake asked many of these same men to kill Bakley.

After Bakley's shooting death, investigators found small traces of gunshot residue on Blake's hands and clothes, but expert witnesses have always contended that the debris may have come from Blake's handling of his own gun collection.

Blake told jurors Thursday that since he began his acting career at age 2, he found himself in a state of arrested development. He liked to play with sparklers, lead toy soldiers, and cap guns — all of which contain elements that may have attributed to the residue on his hands and clothes.

He also kept a cap gun under his pillow.

"That's Mickey's gun," Blake said, referring to his birth name, Mickey Gubitosi. "That's the very same gun that my mother took away from me."

Pillow talk

The grown-up Blake who took the stand Thursday was not without praise for his dead wife. Despite their casual affair, he said he enjoyed Bakley's company.

"Bonny liked to talk ... She was extremely intelligent. I would guess her IQ at 150. She could charm the eyes out of a rattlesnake," Blake said.

He also shared with jurors some of the couple's intimacies, including Blake's aversion to condoms.

"I guess I figured if something was going to put me in the bone orchard it wouldn't be venereal disease. I'm not comfortable with condoms anyway. Sex doesn't go well," Blake said with a sheepish grin.

But in the end, it wasn't venereal disease that soured the relationship. It was Bakley's pregnancy.

Blake said she rebuffed his offer: $250,000 if you get an abortion. "She said there isn't enough money in the world. That wasn't going to happen."

He admitted to being scared about her pregnancy and at one point cutting off all contact.

"I was an old man, and here was this woman who offered me up her own daughter," Blake said. "I just couldn't see any good coming out of it at all."

Much has been said about Bakley's shady business practices and her penchant for bilking lonely men out of cash and gifts. But Blake claimed that Bakley once presented her daughter, Holly Gawron, for his sexual whims.

"She introduced her as her daughter and kind of teased around and said, 'Well, I guess you probably think she's a lot prettier than me. You'd probably like to see her more than me," Blake began. "Holly left the room. And Bonny said, 'You know, you really could have sex with her. She's the right age.'"

"What did you say?" Ezzell asked.

"We just dropped the whole subject," Blake said.

Holly, 25, has been at her brother's side during the civil trial, now in its sixth week. However, she was not in court Thursday, as the new mother briefly returned to Tennessee to care for her 6-week-old daughter, Love Lee.

Saved by fatherhood

Blake told jurors that the idea of being a septuagenarian father frightened him, especially since he wasn't even sure if he was the real father.

Bakley was also in a relationship with Christian Brando, the son of Blake's good friend Marlon Brando. On June 2, 2000, she named her newborn girl Shannon Christian Brando.

"When you saw the pictures of Shannon Christian Brando, what did you think?" Ezell asked the actor.

"She looked a lot like me," Blake said. "But she also looked like Marlon Brando."

When he finally held his daughter at 2 weeks old, Blake said, it was like being struck by lightning.

"I just felt different about a lot of things. There was just a whole big rush of emotion. I held her and pretty soon me and Bonny were walking down the hallway," Blake said, his voice cracking. "But I wasn't me and she wasn't Bonny. There were just two people who had a baby. I felt blessed. I felt young. I felt that God had given me a new lease in life. Like a light comes on."

"Were you in love with Bonny Lee Bakley?" Ezzell asked.

"No," Blake said. "I started feeling affection and fondness for Bonny, and a while later I admitted to myself that I loved her. She had given me the greatest gift that anyone could have ever offered me on the planet."

A few months later, DNA tests confirmed the baby was his. He called Marlon Brando to say he was marrying Bakley.

"He was angry. He said, 'You're crazy. You're an old man.' Things like that," Blake said. "It was a very brief conversation and the tone of the conversation was, 'This conversation's over and our relationship's over.'"

Blake took custody of the child, married Bakley in November 2000, changed the baby's name to Rose Lenore Sophia Blake, and made arrangements for Bakley to eventually move into his guest house.

"Rosie had saved my life and changed my life and gave me a reason to live, and I had Bonny to thank for that," Blake said. "It would be my pleasure for Bonny to have a good life for the rest of her life."

But before Bakley ever moved in, her life was cut short on May 4, 2001, when she was gunned down by an unknown assailant as she sat in Blake's black sports car outside an Italian restaurant.

A jury spent about 35 hours over nine days in March to find the actor not guilty of his wife's murder. Blake, who never took the stand in his criminal trial, has vehemently maintained his innocence throughout his civil trial.

"Regardless of the conversation, I loved Bonny and I always prayed that God would find a way to sneak in there and get a little light in her life," Blake said. "I thought that a great deal of her life would just kind of fall off as baggage."

Court is not in session next week. Blake will conclude his testimony when trial resumes on Oct 17.
 
http://www.courttv.com/trials/blake/100605_ctv.html

Blake Defense Cites Slain Wife's Letter
By GREG RISLING
Associated Press Writer

BURBANK, Calif. - A defense attorney in the wrongful-death lawsuit against Robert Blake on Tuesday tried to bolster the theory that many people wanted the actor's wife dead.
Attorney Peter Ezzell cited a letter written by Bonny Lee Bakley to her probation officer that claimed "I've almost been killed a half a dozen times."

Neither Ezzell nor Blake elaborated on what Bakley was referring to. Blake indicated the letter was written between November 1999 and June 2000, when Bakley was pregnant with the couple's daughter, Rosie, now 5.

Blake was acquitted of murder in March, but Bakley's children are now suing him for damages, claiming he was responsible for her death in 2001. The actor, who did not testify in his criminal trial, has been on the stand in the civil trial since last week.

Bakley, 44, was found shot to death in Blake's car outside a restaurant where they had dined.

Blake has repeatedly denied killing his wife. He claims he left Bakley in the car to go back inside the restaurant to retrieve a handgun he carried for protection but accidentally left behind, then found her dead when he went back outside.

Blake also was questioned Tuesday about private investigators he had look into his wife's past, which included a mail-order business in which she used nude pictures of herself and promises of sex to get money from men.

Asked why he would investigate Bakley, Blake said, "If you had a kid who did drugs, wouldn't you look into it? ... And see if they are lying to you?"


 
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
 
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Blake Lawyers Charge Jury Misconduct

LOS ANGELES — Lawyers for Robert Blake, the actor who was found liable in a civil case for $30 million in his wife's death, asked for a new trial Monday, alleging juror misconduct.

One juror did not disclose that her daughter was in prison for murder, and others violated instructions from the judge, Blake's lawyers alleged in their motion.

Jurors discussed the case before deliberations began and paid attention to facets of the actor's criminal trial that were not part of the civil case, the motion said.

Jurors also discussed sending a message to celebrities by imposing a huge award for damages, the motion said.

Blake, the star of the old "Baretta" TV series, was found liable in November for the death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, 44. She was found shot to death in his car in May 2001. He told police he had left her alone briefly while he retrieved a gun he carried for protection and had accidentally left in a restaurant where the two had just dined.

Blake was acquitted of murder, but his wife's children filed a wrongful-death lawsuit.

A hearing on Monday's defense motion has been tentatively set for April 7. The plaintiffs' response is due next week.

Blake has filed for bankruptcy and said he is struggling to pay fees associated with the trial, including the $30 million judgment.


___

March 28, 2006 - 12:04 a.m. CST

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/TV/Robert_Blake.html

Thanks for keeping track of this case, Calli!  Swartzbach is a hero.  :-X