Blake Is Denied Bail; D.A. Reveals More Details

In an emotional plea for his freedom, actor Robert Blake told a judge Wednesday he is so severely dyslexic that he cannot read, making it difficult to help prepare in jail his defense on murder charges.

“Now it’s my time to fight. And I can’t fight in that cement room with thousands of pages [of evidence] that I can’t read.” said Blake, 68, during a bail hearing in a Van Nuys courtroom.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lloyd M. Nash denied the bail request, saying Blake is ineligible because he’s charged in a capital case in which he could have faced the death penalty. Prosecutors have said they won’t seek death for Blake.

Blake’s statement came while his attorney, Harland W. Braun, was asking for $1-million bail for Blake. He has been held without bail at Men’s Central Jail since his April 18 arrest.

Blake is charged with fatally shooting his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, last May 4, outside a Studio City restaurant. His remarks Wednesday were his first public statements, outside his not guilty plea, since Bakley’s death.

In another setback for Blake, prosecutors revealed more details of their case, alleging Blake had discussed killing Bakley before she gave birth to their daughter, Rose.

According to a newly filed police statement, Blake learned in late 1999 that Bakley was pregnant, and told an unnamed private investigator he wanted to force Bakley to have an abortion or “whack her.”

Blake told the private investigator that “Bakley would not accept money to go away,” according to the seven-page declaration of Los Angeles Police Det. Ronald Y. Ito, filed with the court Wednesday.

Over the next several months, Ito said, Blake plotted to plant illegal drugs on Bakley, then asked two stuntmen to kill her.

In court, Nash scheduled a May 21 hearing on a prosecution motion to recuse defense attorney Arna H. Zlotnik, who represents Blake’s bodyguard and co-defendant, Earle Caldwell. Zlotnik is being paid by Blake, Braun said.

Blake, best known for his leading role in the 1970s television series “Baretta,” is charged with murder with the special allegation of lying in wait, two counts of soliciting murder and conspiracy.

He and Caldwell have each pleaded not guilty.

Blake told police he left Bakley in his 1991 Dodge Stealth while he returned to Vitello’s restaurant, where they had dined, to retrieve his gun. When he returned, he said, she had been shot.

Braun has said that Blake disliked Bakley, but he said so did many other men she had encountered in her mail-order business. She catered to lonely men, sending them photos of naked women for money and bus tickets.

The Los Angeles district attorney’s office announced last week it will not seek the death penalty against Blake. He still faces life in prison without parole if convicted.

Outside the courtroom, Braun accused prosecutors of adding the special circumstance of lying in wait “solely for the purpose of keeping him in custody.”

Without that allegation, Blake would be facing 50 years to life in prison and would be eligible for bail, Braun said.

Before the hearing, prosecutors Patrick R. Dixon and Gregory A. Dohi unveiled additional evidence against Blake and co-defendant Caldwell. Caldwell, 46, of Burbank is charged with conspiracy. He was released on bail last Friday after Blake posted $1 million in cash.

Before their marriage, Bakley had accused Blake of stealing their child, according to the police statement. Later, police say, Blake told the FBI that Bakley was extorting him and selling pornography.

Bakley gave birth to the child, now nearly 2, and after a paternity test proved Blake was the father, he married Bakley and moved her into a separate house on his Studio City property. In a prenuptial agreement, “both parties agreed the party who canceled the wedding would lose custody of the baby,” the detective’s declaration says.

Ito said records from an AT&T; prepaid phone card show calls were made between March 12 and May 5, 2001, from Blake’s house to the homes of the two stuntmen he allegedly solicited to kill Bakley.

According to Ito’s declaration, Roy “Snuffy” Harrison arranged separate meetings between Blake and two unidentified stuntmen at Du-Par’s restaurant in Studio City in March 2001.

Braun has identified the two stuntmen as Gary McLarty, 61, of Lake View Terrace, and Ronald “Duffy” Hambleton, 65, of Lucerne Valley, but said he does not know which allegations involve each man. The police declaration says the stuntmen told authorities that for each meeting, Blake drove the man to his home and asked him to kill Bakley. Blake asked the first stuntman to hide in Blake’s van, which would be parked in a desert area, and kill Bakley, the declaration says. Blake told the stuntman that Caldwell already would have dug a hole for burial, police say.

The second stuntman told authorities Blake asked him “to kill Bonny Lee Bakley as she sat in a parked car” near Bullhead City, Ariz., or outside a local restaurant, the statement says. Blake showed him “a small gun in a zippered case and suggested that the person could use that gun to commit the murder,” the declaration states.

Braun said Wednesday he has not seen any physical evidence linking Blake to Bakley’s shooting.

Braun said Blake had no blood on his clothing, and disputed the prosecutor’s interpretation of a test that found gunshot residue on Blake’s hands and clothing. In court, Braun said such tests should not be performed on people who have a gun in their possession, as Blake did that night.

The residue could have some from sources other than the murder weapon, the coroner’s report said. There were no fingerprints on the weapon used in the slaying, a Walther P38 military 9 millimeter handgun, a forensics report said.