In what could be his last public appearance, actor Robert Blake was found liable for the death of his wife Bonny Lee Bakley and ordered by jurors to pay her four children $30 million in damages.

After eight days of deliberations, jurors Friday determined by a vote of 10-2 that Blake "intentionally caused the death" of Bakley, who was gunned down May 4, 2001 outside a restaurant where the couple had just eaten dinner.

None of Bakley's four children were in the courtroom when the verdict was read. Daughter Holly Gawron said in a phone interview from Memphis, Tenn., that she was ecstatic.

"It's been a nightmare, but now it's time to repair our lives and move on," said Gawron, 25, who added that the verdict was more important than the monetary award.

Unlike Blake's criminal trial, where 12 jurors had to decide guilt unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt, the civil wrongful-death case required only that nine of 12 jurors believe by a "preponderance" of the evidence that Blake was responsible for the crime.

Jurors admit they were swayed by Blake's combative attitude during his eight days of testimony, when he often lashed out at plaintiffs' attorney Eric Dubin calling him "chief," "junior" or "sonny." At one point, Dubin said he felt threatened by Blake's responses.

"He's not a quitter. He's 72 years old and he's been through hell for four years," Schwartzbach said in a phone interview. "I continue to believe in his innocence."

The plaintiffs had argued that Blake either killed Bakley himself or hired someone to do so. The jury was not asked to decide which theory it believed. However, the panel decided that Blake's handyman, Earle Caldwell, did not collaborate in the killing.

Attorney Gary Austin, who represented Caldwell, said the justice system "worked for him in the criminal case and it worked here in the civil case."

Blake was acquitted at his criminal trial last March. Bakley's children sued the actor in 2002. The four-year legal battle appeared to have taken its toll on the aging actor.

Dubin contended that Blake despised Bakley, believing she trapped him into marriage by getting pregnant, and that he decided to get rid of her so he could raise his adored daughter, Rosie, by himself.

Dubin used depositions from Blake, an investigator who worked for the actor and others to claim that Blake had a plan to kidnap Rosie and get Bakley arrested and jailed, and if that failed, to have Bakley killed.

Blake said that on the night of the killing, he left the 44-year-old Bakley in the car while he went back inside the restaurant to retrieve a gun he carried for protection but had accidentally left in their booth. Blake said he found Bakley wounded when he went back out to the car.

Blake's lawyer, Peter Ezzell, argued there were many people who wanted Bakley dead. He portrayed her as a grifter who preyed on lonely men, selling them nude pictures of herself and extracting money with promises of sex and marriage. She was on probation for fraud when Blake married her.

The verdict in the Blake case follows a similar path taken with O.J. Simpson, who was acquitted at a criminal trial in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife and a friend of hers, but two years later was found responsible for the slayings in a civil case and was ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages.

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