Jurors Hear Details about Blake's Rocky Marriage
tinydancer
By Lisa Sweetingham
Court TV
Updated Jan. 20, 2005, 10:28 a.m. ET
VAN NUYS, Calif. - Almost a year before Bonny Lee Bakley was slain, actor
Robert Blake offered a relative stranger thousands of dollars to help him
enlist law enforcement officials to look into her illegal activities, a
witness testified Wednesday.
"He offered me $10,000 cash the first time I met him. I didn't even touch
it. I said, 'What's that for?' and he said 'I want you to help me,'" said
Robert Renzi, who said he met Blake through the actor's former handyman,
Earle Caldwell.
"But you understood that to mean that he wanted you to help him to use
lawful methods to address his concerns about Miss Bakley?" defense attorney
Gerald Schwartzbach asked.
"I assumed it was," Renzi told jurors, adding that he informed Blake that he
would not engage in any illegal activities and Blake did not ask him to do
anything illegal.
Renzi said he met Caldwell in 2000 at an auto repair shop, where they talked
about Renzi's personal contacts at the DEA and FBI.
Caldwell was initially Blake's co-defendant when the two were arrested in
April 2002 and charged with Bakley's May 4, 2001, murder. The charges
against Caldwell were dropped in 2003 because of a lack of evidence.
"Mr. Earl mentioned that Bobby wanted to show me some paperwork he had,"
said Renzi, who appeared to be in his mid-70s and slightly hard of hearing.
"I met Mr. Blake at the door. It was kind of a thrill."
Renzi told jurors he met Blake "six months or so" before he married Bakley
in November 2001, and Blake described meeting her in 1999 at a party, after
which they had a one-night stand.
"What happened?" prosecutor Shellie Samuels asked.
"Well, apparently a child was conceived," the witness said with a laugh. "I
believe it was in a van. It's not something I dwelled on."
"What did he talk to you about?" Samuels asked.
"He explained the problems he was having with Bonny. He thought there was
something wrong about her past," Renzi said. "He told me about what she did
for a living, how she conned everybody. He had lots of paperwork."
The "paperwork" included letters and nude photos Bakley had sent Blake.
Bakley, who was on probation in Arkansas for credit card and identity fraud,
mailed Blake letters from Florida and Tennessee, and Renzi testified that
they discussed the fact that she was violating her probation.
"There's nothing pleasant that he felt about her," Renzi said.
Blake also mentioned, according to the witness, Bakley's involvement in a
mail-order porn scam, in which she and members of her family would dupe men
into sending them money.
Renzi said he met with Blake "20 or 30 times" for coffee to talk about his
concerns about Bakley and the baby. "I felt I was irrelevant after a while
because it's all he talked about," Renzi said.
"He wasn't upset about being a father. He was totally obsessed with the love
of that child," he said. "He didn't want Bonny to have anything to do with
her. No visitations, nothing."
Renzi said he called Luis Mendoza, a friend and former FBI informant in
Florida, who agreed to come to Los Angeles to meet with Blake.
Mendoza is expected to testify on Thursday about the substance of their
conversations.
Portrait of a marriage
Renzi was the first witness in the "Baretta" star's murder trial, now in its
14th day, to testify about the couple's strained relationship. He also gave
jurors insights into their brief and lackluster Nov. 19, 2000, wedding.
"He called and said, 'I'm going to get married tonight. Can you come over
for a few minutes?'" Renzi testified, adding that when he said he didn't
have much time, Blake told him it wouldn't take long.
"And it didn't," he said. "They started the ceremony: one, two, three."
"How long did it take?" Samuels asked.
"One, two, three," the witness repeated, eliciting laughter from the
gallery.
"He didn't like her, and this whole thing of being with her, even marrying
her, was to protect his daughter," Renzi told jurors, adding that Blake once
offered her $250,000 to "walk away" but she refused.
"From what I understand, Bonny wanted to marry a movie actor. But he wasn't
too thrilled about it at all," Renzi said.
"Did he ever say why he married her?" Samuels asked.
"He said he was trying to keep her appeased. Maybe she'd give up the child.
It was obvious to him that her game was not the child, her game was to get
in that movie circle," Renzi said.
"Did he say he would do anything to protect that child?" Samuels asked.
"Yes," he said.
During a brief cross-examination, Renzi reiterated that Blake never asked
him to engage in illegal activities. He also conceded that he told police
that Blake said he carried a gun to protect Bakley.
"She was concerned about her own safety because she had ripped off a number
of men over the years?" defense attorney Schwartzbach asked.
"Yes," Renzi said.
Prosecutors say the 71-year-old actor murdered 44-year-old Bakley on May 4,
2001 in a desperate attempt to retain custody of their daughter, Rose Lenore
Sophia Blake, and to protect her from Bakley's grifter past.
Blake claims he had nothing to do with Bakley's death, and that he had
stepped away briefly when she was fatally shot to death as she sat in his
car, parked near a restaurant where the couple had just finished dinner.
He faces life in prison without the chance of parole if convicted.
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