Blake's Lawyer Ridicules Charges

Robert Blake's lawyer called the prosecution's case against the actor ridiculous, stressing in closing arguments that the former "Baretta" star is not responsible for finding his wife's killer.

"Mr. Blake doesn't have a burden of solving this crime," defense attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach told the jury Thursday.

Schwartzbach also scoffed at the idea Blake would have killed wife Bonny Lee Bakley in his own neighborhood while she waited in a car parked under a street light.

"I'm going to kill her right by a restaurant that I've been going to for 30 years?" Schwartzbach asked.

He was expected to conclude his closing argument Friday, with jurors to get the case after the prosecution's rebuttal.

During his closing, Schwartzbach also pointed out the weapon used to kill Bakley was a 60-year-old handgun that contained three rounds of obsolete ammunition. Only two of the bullets were used, and Bakley was still breathing when paramedics arrived.

He said Blake wouldn't create such an elaborate plot, then leave his wife alive to possibly identify him.

"It is an absolutely absurd scenario," he said.

Bakley, 44, was killed May 4, 2001, outside Blake's favorite Italian restaurant in Studio City. The 71-year-old actor is charged with murder, two counts of solicitation of murder and a special circumstance of lying in wait.

If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

Schwartzbach also attacked the credibility of the prosecution's two key witnesses, both of whom have admitted being heavy drug users.

Blake maintains someone else killed Bakley when he left her briefly in his car to retrieve a gun he accidentally left at the restaurant. He told detectives he was armed because his wife feared someone was stalking her.

Prosecutors argued Blake's account didn't add up because nobody saw him retrieve the gun from the restaurant. Schwartzbach said the layout of the restaurant would have made it easy for Blake to slip in, retrieve the gun and leave.

Blake's .38-caliber revolver was not the gun used to kill Bakley.

Prosecutor Shellie Samuels told jurors in her closing arguments that Blake killed Bakley because she was a con artist who tricked him into marrying her by getting pregnant and giving birth to a daughter whom he quickly became obsessed with protecting from Bakley.

Both sides agree Blake married Bakley because of their baby, Rosie, and then was determined to keep the child away from a mother who sold promises of sex by mail and whom Blake suspected of using another of her children for pornography.

Schwartzbach argued Blake was willing to put up with Bakley for the sake of their daughter.

By Robert Jablon