Interordi
Account
New topic
Reply
Offline
QuoteA laptop computer containing files belonging to Robert Blake\'s defense attorney was stolen Wednesday from the lawyer\'s Sherman Oaks apartment, just days before the actor\'s murder trial was set to begin.
advertisement
Attorney Gerald Schwartzbach told reporters outside a Van Nuys, Calif. courtroom Thursday morning that no matter what results from the investigation, \"we intend to try this case as soon as we possibly can.\"
\"We are satisfied that we have a fair jury and we want this trial,\" Schwartzbach said.
Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp has ordered a hearing at 9 a.m. Monday to discuss the burglary and its possible effect on the trial.
Opening statements are still scheduled for Monday, but Schwartzbach may ask for a postponement.
Attorneys met with the judge at 9 a.m. Thursday, as previously scheduled, to discuss motions in preparation for the start of the trial. Those motions are now postponed until Monday.
Detectives currently have no witnesses or leads on the burglary, but they were able to recover important evidence.
\"We did a complete forensic investigation,\" said Lt. Don Hooper of the LAPD Commercial Crimes Division. \"We were able to make some lifts of fingerprints and we also used the kind of equipment necessary to pull up footprints off the carpet.\"
\"We don \'t know if they were prints that belong to the residents or not, but we did get latent prints and we\'ll be focusing in that direction next,\" he said.
According to Hooper, Schwartzbach called to report the burglary of his home office at 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
The San Francisco-based lawyer has been living in San Fernando Valley since Blake, 71, hired him earlier this year to defend him against charges that he shot his 44-year-old wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, to death outside an Italian restaurant in May 2001.
Schwartzbach had been in court all morning on the day of the burglary with Blake and prosecutors selecting the 12 jurors and six alternates. The panel is scheduled to return to court on Monday as planned.
\'Heart and soul of the case\'
Judge Schempp also appointed local criminal defense attorney James Blatt as special master to ensure that the LAPD\'s burglary investigation does not jeopardize the defense\'s case.
\"He was chosen by the judge and accepted, readily, by [both] parties. He indicated he\'d been physically at the crime scene until about 3 a.m. today,\" L.A. Superior Court Public Information Officer Allan Parachini told Courttv.com in an e-mail.
According to Parachini, Blatt observed the detectives at work in Schwartzbach\'s apartment and was satisfied that attorney-client confidentiality had not been compromised by their investigation.
\"Both the D.A. and LAPD have indicated they are insulating all investigators and Assistant DAs on the Blake case from receiving any information on the burglary investigation,\" Parachini wrote.
Burglary investigators do not yet have a comprehensive list or estimated value of the items stolen, but the most compelling loss for Schwartzbach may be the case files on the stolen laptop. He declined to say what was on those files.
Blatt told reporters Thursday that Schwartzbach\'s computer contained \"the heart and soul of the defense case.\"
Lt. Hooper told Courttv.com that the intruder or intruders forced through the doors of the attorney\'s third-floor apartment between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. A second apartment on the same floor was also burglarized during that time.
Hooper described the front entry to Schwartzbach\'s apartment as having side-by-side double doors that meet in the middle by deadbolts.
\"They were forced apart at the middle where the two doors meet,\" he said, adding that there were no broken windows or other visible areas of forced entry or exit. Blatt said the doors may have been pried open by a crowbar or screwdriver.
Police did not know what was taken from the second apartment, but Hooper said it belongs to an \"elderly [female] resident not involved in the Blake case in any way, shape or form.\" She was not home when the crime occurred.
The three-level apartment complex, just south of the Ventura Freeway, has six to eight units on each floor and sits in an upper-middle-class residential area.
Although the case occurred in Sherman Oaks, it is being handled by the LAPD Commercial Crimes Division, because of its high-profile nature.
\"We handle cases that require resources and assets in an area that may not be readily available to devote to a particular crime or a pattern of crimes,\" Hooper said, \"and this is a somewhat high-profile case.\"
Courttv.com wire services contributed to this report.
