Blake Loses Second Lawyer in 7 Weeks

Actor Robert Blake lost his second lawyer in seven weeks Friday when a judge granted Jennifer L. Keller’s request to withdraw from the high-profile murder case.

Keller and co-counsel Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. joined Blake’s criminal defense team in late November, taking over from Harland W. Braun, who had represented the actor since the night his wife was fatally shot in his car nearly two years ago.

Keller and Braun quit because Blake refused to follow their advice against giving media interviews. In each case, Blake tried to set up on-camera interviews from jail that would have been broadcast to a national television audience.

Even Mesereau threatened to quit this week when Blake ignored his strong and repeated orders to remain silent during a deposition taken Wednesday in a civil wrongful-death lawsuit filed by his slain wife’s children, including her 2-year-old daughter by the actor, Rosie.

Before the first question was posed, Blake tearfully expressed concern that he would die in custody without ever defending himself against the charges that he killed his 44-year-old wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, on May 4, 2001, outside a Studio City restaurant where they had dined.

“I’m an old man. I’m pushing 70,” Blake told Mesereau. “If I’m going to die in that box, I want to talk before I go. I want Rosie to see who her daddy is.”

The 69-year-old actor, best known for his role in the 1970s television series “Baretta,” has been held without bail since his arrest April 18 in Hidden Hills. He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he fatally shot his wife after soliciting two stuntmen to kill her, and conspired with his handyman, Earle Caldwell, to commit murder. He faces life in prison.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lloyd M. Nash released Keller, a criminal defense specialist from Irvine, from the Blake case Friday after gaining assurances from Mesereau that the actor’s preliminary hearing would begin Feb. 26.

“We are not going to seek a continuance. I’ll be ready,” Mesereau said during the brief hearing in a Van Nuys courtroom.

Outside court, Keller said, “Before I came on this case, I had been assured that Mr. Blake would not be giving any interviews to the media without my knowledge and consent. That didn’t occur.”

She said this week that she decided to quit after learning that Blake was trying to set up an on-camera interview with Barbara Walters from jail.

“If I had been told that he was going to speak out, I would never have taken the case,” Keller said earlier this week.

About two months ago, Sheriff Lee Baca denied Diane Sawyer’s request to bring a television camera into the jail to interview Blake. When Braun, Blake’s first attorney, learned about the Sawyer interview, he quit, saying “no criminal lawyer in his right mind” would let a client be interviewed for television.

On Wednesday, Mesereau warned Blake at the videotaped deposition that prosecutors would “twist the things you say and try to hurt you in the criminal trial.” He refused to allow Blake to answer any questions asked by plaintiffs’ counsel Eric J. Dubin at the deposition, including the actor’s date of birth.

Blake sat silently as Dubin asked point-blank whether the actor killed his wife.

Despite her withdrawal from the case, Keller remained optimistic about Blake’s future. “I hope to have a drink with him after he is acquitted,” she said.