Wrongful-Death Civil Trial Begins for Blake

Facing a lawsuit from the children of his slain wife, actor Robert Blake sat in court and watched Thursday as the family’s attorney accused him of conspiring with his handyman to murder Bonny Lee Bakley.

But attorney Eric J. Dubin, already looking at a tough fight because of Blake’s acquittal on criminal charges in March, was interrupted repeatedly and finally cut short by the judge for arguing rather than outlining his case.

“Just show us the evidence,” Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David M. Schacter told him earlier.

“Tell us what happened without the adjectives,” the judge said later. Under court rules, arguments are allowed only at the end of testimony.

The family has accused Blake and his handyman, Earle S. Caldwell, of responsibility for 44-year-old Bakley’s death May 4, 2001, outside a Studio City restaurant where the couple had just dined.

At one point in his two-hour address, Dubin appeared to make a compelling point, telling jurors that Caldwell’s former girlfriend would testify that he owned a vintage German handgun like the Walther P-38 that was used to kill Bakley. Dubin said the girlfriend recognized the weapon from its wooden grip with an engraved Nazi insignia of an eagle or swastika.

But when Blake’s lawyer, Peter Q. Ezzell, delivered his statement, he pointed out that the murder weapon’s grip was made of plastic and had no markings. A deputy sheriff held up the gun for jurors to see.

Later, Dubin said he misspoke about the girlfriend’s expected testimony.

Dubin turned down a $250,000 settlement offer before the trial began.

Dubin’s case is expected to track Blake’s criminal trial, except that Blake and Caldwell will both take the stand in the Burbank courthouse to face questions. Dubin believes the actor killed Bakley and that Caldwell helped him plan the killing.

Caldwell was dismissed from the criminal case before trial. After Dubin’s opening statement, Caldwell’s lawyer, Gary Austin, asked the judge to dismiss his client from the case because he wasn’t in Los Angeles the night of the killing. Schacter did not rule immediately.

Blake, now 72, married Bakley after a paternity test showed that he was the father of her youngest daughter, Rosie. His lawyer has called it “a marriage of convenience.”

But Dubin suggested that Blake killed Bakley in part so his older daughter, Delinah, could have an infant to raise. “She was 39 and wanted a baby,” he said. Delinah Blake is now Rosie’s legal parent.

Lawyers for both sides agree that Bakley sold nude photos of herself, with promises of sex, to men she found in lonely hearts club magazines. Dubin, in his statements, conceded that she had “made mistakes.”

After learning that Bakley was pregnant, the former “Baretta” star tried to have her probation revoked so she would be sent to prison, planted illegal drugs in her car to get her arrested, and solicited at least two former stuntmen to kill her, Dubin said.

Blake and Caldwell also planned to kill Bakley on the couple’s “honeymoon” in Arizona, days before the actual murder, Dubin said, but Caldwell could not pull the trigger, the lawyer said.

Opening statements will continue Tuesday.