Emotional Blake Is Helped Out of Court

An emotional Robert Blake appeared to break down and had to be escorted from the courtroom Monday afternoon moments after the prosecution rested its case in the actor’s murder trial.

Blake shook and put his hand over his mouth to smother a sob and was helped into the hallway by members of the defense team. The 71-year-old actor had grown teary-eyed after hearing an audio recording of himself talking with visitors in jail.

The outburst, which occurred as jurors were filing out of court for the day, was in sharp contrast to Monday’s sluggish testimony, in which prosecutors called half a dozen witnesses, including a bank security expert and two sheriff’s deputies responsible for taping jailhouse visits.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Shellie L. Samuels concluded her case, which spanned four weeks and 68 witnesses, by showing jurors a February 2003 interview with Barbara Walters, in which Blake gave no indication of having a stormy relationship with his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, whom he is accused of killing.

In contrast, audiotapes of visitors to Blake in jail painted a far darker picture as the actor expressed relief that his baby daughter, Rosie, would be free of Bakley’s family, who he said was after his money.

“Rosie is safe....Those monsters will never get her, that other family,” Blake could be heard saying on the tape.

Before Monday’s display, Blake, star of the 1970s TV show “Baretta,” had been mostly impassive in the Van Nuys courtroom. Since the trial began Dec. 20, he has shown little emotion beyond an occasional laugh, such as last week when his lawyer described a purple-and-gold van Blake owned as “hideous.”

Eric Dubin, an attorney representing Bakley’s four children in a civil wrongful-death case against Blake and who was in the courtroom Monday, suggested that the outburst was contrived. He said Blake was coming to the realization that he could lose the case.

If convicted, Blake could face life in prison.

“Creative lawyering is not going to get him out of this,” Dubin said. “Neither are his acting abilities.”

In earlier testimony, prosecution witnesses told jurors that on the night of the slaying, Blake appeared to feign grief, turning his emotions on and off.

Bakley was shot to death May 4, 2001, inside Blake’s Dodge Stealth, which was parked about two blocks from the Studio City restaurant where they had just eaten dinner. Blake told police that he returned to Vitello’s restaurant to retrieve a handgun that he carried for Bakley’s protection and returned to his car to find her bleeding from the head.

Samuels contends that Blake ambushed his wife that night, after failing to get others to do it.

In the weeks of testimony, Samuels presented the jury of seven men and five women with more than 100 pieces of evidence. Jurors were also taken on a lengthy tour of the crime scene.

The prosecution’s case hit its emotional high point last week with testimony from two aging Hollywood stuntmen and a career criminal-turned preacher -- who said Blake had offered them money to kill Bakley.

Defense lawyer M. Gerald Schwartzbach begins his case today with seven witnesses. He has closely guarded his legal strategy, but he is expected to continue to attack the credibility of the stuntmen and of L.A. police investigating the case.