Actor Walks After Marathon Trial
By GREG RISLING, AP
LOS ANGELES (March 16) - Robert Blake left court playing a role he hasn't known for a long time: that of a man no longer charged with killing his wife, no longer cast as the lead villain in a bizarre murder trial.
The 71-year-old star of the 1970s detective drama ''Baretta'' was acquitted of murder Wednesday in the 2001 shooting death of his wife, bringing a dramatic end to a trial that played out like 1940s film noir.
The former tough-guy actor sobbed uncontrollably at the defense table, embraced his attorney and exhaled heavily as the verdicts sank in. His lawyers at his side, Blake later stood before a phalanx of reporters and delivered a rambling speech in which he said, ''this small band of dedicated warriors saved my life.''
At one point, Blake asked whether anyone in the audience had something to remove his electronic monitoring bracelet. He then bent down and cut off the device.
''If you want to know how to go through $10 million in five years, ask me,'' said Blake, who was free on bail during his trial but under house arrest. ''I'm broke. I need a job.''
The jury also acquitted Blake of one charge of trying to get someone to kill Bonny Lee Bakley. The jury was deadlocked on a second solicitation charge, voting 11-1 in favor of acquittal. The judge dismissed the count.
The jury of seven men and five women delivered the verdicts on its ninth day of deliberations, following a trial with a cast a characters that included two Hollywood stuntmen who said Blake tried to get them to bump off his wife.
Blake had faced life in prison; prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.
Blake was charged with shooting the 44-year-old Bakley in their car outside the actor's favorite Italian restaurant on May 4, 2001, less than six months after their marriage.
Defense attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach called it a weak case built largely on the testimony of the two stuntmen - both of whom were once heavy drug users.
No eyewitnesses, blood or DNA evidence linked Blake to the crime. The murder weapon, found in a trash bin, could not be traced to Blake, and witnesses said the minuscule amounts of gunshot residue found on Blake's hands could have come from a different gun he said he carried for protection.
''They couldn't put the gun in his hand,'' jury foreman Thomas Nicholson told reporters outside court, adding the case lacked evidence that could ''connect all the links in the chain.''
Bakley's daughter Holly Gawron, 24, said she was shocked by the verdicts and looked forward to her family's wrongful death lawsuit against Blake. The trial in that case is set to begin July 7.
''I hope somehow that I will be able to find some justice, some form of punishment for him, because he's off celebrating his freedom for murdering my mother,'' she said. ''It's very hard to deal with.''
Prosecutors said Blake believed his wife trapped him into a loveless marriage by getting pregnant. They said Blake soon became smitten with the baby, Rosie, and desperately wanted to keep the child away from Bakley, whom he considered an unfit mother.
Bakley had been married several times, had a record for mail fraud and made a living scamming men out of money with nude pictures of herself and promises of sex.
''He was tricked by Bonny Lee and he hated her for it,'' prosecutor Shellie Samuels said in closing arguments. ''He got taken by a small-time grifter.''
The four-month trial was part of a wave of celebrity court cases in California that have provided endless fodder for the tabloids and cable networks. The Michael Jackson child molestation trial was starting just as the Blake case was wrapping up, and rock 'n' roll producer Phil Spector will stand trial later this year in Los Angeles for allegedly murdering a B-movie actress.
In another murder case seemingly made for the tabloids, Scott Peterson was sent to death row just a few hours before the Blake verdict for killing his pregnant wife and her unborn fetus.
Blake has been in front of the camera from childhood, back when he was sad-eyed little Mickey in the ''Our Gang'' movie shorts, and portrayed a killer who dies on the gallows in the 1967 movie ''In Cold Blood.''
In ''Baretta,'' Blake played a tough-talking, street-smart detective whose catchphrase was ''Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.''
Those acting successes seemed well in the past by the time a divorced and lonely Blake met Bakley at a jazz club five years ago. They had sex in his truck that night, and she was soon carrying Blake's child. They were wed in 2000 in a no-frills ceremony at which the bride wore an electronic monitoring bracelet because she was still on probation for fraud.
Prosecutors said Blake killed his wife after failing to persuade a street thug-turned-minister and two stuntmen from his ''Baretta'' days to do the job. One of the stuntmen said Blake talked about having Bakley ''snuffed'' and mentioned locations for the killing, including the Grand Canyon.
Also, a former detective who worked for Blake as a private investigator testified that the actor proposed to kidnap Bakley, force her to have an abortion and, if that did not work, ''whack her.''
The defense portrayed the stuntmen as drug users prone to hallucinations and delusions, and jurors appeared to agree. The foreman called testimony from one ''disjointed and so irregular'' and considered the other ''a prolific liar.''
Blake told authorities that he walked his wife to the car after dinner, then discovered he had left his gun back in the booth at Vitello's Restaurant. He went back to get it, then returned to the car and found his wife shot, he said.
But some witnesses testified that Blake did not appear to be sincere as he wept and moaned over the slaying that night. One witness said the actor appeared to be ''turning it on and off.''
Blake did not testify. But his lawyer showed the jury a videotape of a jailhouse interview with Barbara Walters in which he denied killing his wife.
''It's all about Rosie. It's always been about Rosie,'' Blake said. ''The greatest gift in the world, and I'm going to try to mess it up by being selfish?''
Rosie, now 4, is being raised by Blake's adult daughter.
AP-NY-03-16-05 19:42 EST
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