COURT PAPERS SAY BLAKE TRIED TO HIRE HIT MAN.

Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer

Unable to persuade Bonny Lee Bakley to get an abortion, actor Robert Blake tried to enlist a private investigator into helping him coerce her to get rid of the baby or ``whack her,'' according to court documents released Wednesday.

The documents were part of a 60-page prosecution motion opposing Blake's release on bail on first-degree murder charges. Superior Court Judge Lloyd M. Nash refused to set bail but left open whether he would later at the preliminary hearing.

In a letter police found in a search of Blake's house, Bakley told Blake she was pregnant. ``I hate to tell you this, but the (birth control) pill did not work for me,'' she wrote.

Blake confronted Bakley late in 1999, according to a transcript of an audio tape of a telephone conversation between the couple.

``You swore to me on your life that no matter what, I didn't have to worry, and that was a rotten, stinking, filthy lie and you deliberately got pregnant,'' Blake told Bakley. ``For the rest of your life you'll have to live with that and for the rest of my life I'll never forget it.''

At one point in the transcript, Bakley tells Blake, ``I just wanted to be with you, you know? Why can't you let me be with you and, um, I'll make my mother or somebody watch it (child).''

Blake met with a private investigator, who told police that Blake said Bakley wouldn't accept money to go away. According to prosecutors, Blake then suggested that he and the private investigator could force Bakley to have an abortion or ``whack her.''

After the baby was born, Blake suggested that the private investigator take part in a plot to plant drugs on Bakley, according to the documents. Another witness, whom Blake asked to act as a nanny, told police that Blake described Bakley as ``the scum of the earth.''

Bakley told Blake in another letter dated July 17, 2000, that she still wanted to marry him and wanted a ring, ``at least a carat, size 6.''

The motion also included telephone records for prepaid phone cards showing calls from Blake's house to two stuntmen. One of the stuntmen told police that Blake asked him to hide in Blake's van in a desert area and kill Bakley, and that Blake's bodyguard, Earle Caldwell, would have holes dug for burial.

According to court documents, Blake also told the stuntman the slaying could take place behind Vitello's. The second stuntman told police that Blake asked him to kill Bakley as she sat in a parked car either somewhere near Bullhead City, Ariz., or outside a local restaurant.

In court Wednesday, Blake, 68, made an impassioned plea to be released on bail, telling the judge his dyslexia prevented him from being able to ``fight back for my life,'' while he was ``in that cement room.''

``I can't read,'' Blake said in a quiet, measured voice. ``I spent grammar school and high school sitting in the back of class with children who couldn't speak English ... I got straight D's.''

People couldn't understand how at age 9, the child actor could learn 10 pages of lines every day and perform before a camera, Blake said, but that was because he relied on his hearing.

``It was my ears,'' Blake said. ``My eyes are my enemy and always have been my enemy.

``I need to make my fight now. I need to hear those thousands and thousands of pages of evidence.''

For the past year, Blake said, he has been silent while ``the news media I once respected, the police I once respected and my country'' all said whatever they wanted.

Blake later apologized to the judge, saying he did not mean to say he no longer respected his country.

As he left the courtroom, Blake turned and looked at news media representatives and the few members of the public seated in the gallery with a piercing glance.

Nash set another hearing for May 21 to set the date for a preliminary hearing and to hear a motion by the prosecution to substitute defense counsel.

The motion argues that attorney Arna H. Zlotnik, who represents Blake's bodyguard, Caldwell, 46, should be removed on the grounds that she is a witness against Caldwell and is being paid by Blake, a conflict of interest.

Caldwell, who was freed last week on a $1 million bond paid for by Blake, also appeared in court Tuesday. Caldwell is charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

According to state law, people who are charged with capital crimes can't be released on bail ``when the facts are evident or the presumption great.'' Because the charges against Blake are punishable by death, even though the District Attorney's Office has decided not to seek the death penalty, the prosecution opposes bail for Blake.

Blake's attorney, Harland Braun, argued that his client isn't a flight risk because Blake has lived in the community for more than 60 years and has a home and three children here. Braun said a bail bondsman had offered to put up a $1 million bond with no collateral.

Braun said there was no physical evidence tying Blake to the slaying. Police found no bloodstains on Blake's clothes and, while they did find gunshot residue on Blake's clothing and hands, Braun said the LAPD's own internal material say gunshot residue on clothing is often misleading, and that a test for gunshot residue shouldn't be performed on someone who has a gun in their possession, as Blake did that night.

Bakley was found shot to death May 4, 2001, in the passenger seat of Blake's Dodge Stealth. The car was parked a block and a half away from Vitello's Restaurant in Studio City, where the couple had dined earlier that evening. The weapon used, a World War II-vintage 9 mm Walther P-38 pistol, was later found in a Dumpster.