Hearing Resumes On Request For New Trial In Bashara Case
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - A hearing is resuming into whether an metro Detroit man convicted of arranging his wife's death should get a new trial.
Fifty-seven-year-old Bob Bashara, known as "Master Bob," wants his murder conviction and life sentence thrown out, saying his rights were violated by an ineffective defense.
Testimony began last month in the hearing, which is scheduled to continue on Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit.
Jane Bashara was found dead in 2012 inside her Mercedes-Benz, which was ditched in a Detroit alley just miles from the couple's home in the upper-class suburb of Grosse Pointe Park.
Prosecutors have said Bob Bashara coerced handyman Joe Gentz into strangling his wife at their home and abandoning the body. Gentz is in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder.
Nearly 500 pieces of evidence were presented, more than 70 witnesses took the stand, and sometimes salacious testimony about dungeons, whippings and sex parties peppered the 10-week trial.
Prosecutors argued that Bashara, a former Rotary Club president who used cocaine, wanted his wife out of the way so he could pursue a new life with other women, who referred to him as "Master Bob" as part of an alternative sexual lifestyle known as BDSM. The defense countered that Bashara's affair was just a fling — and that he wouldn't want to kill Jane because she was the breadwinner in the household.
Gentz chose not to testify during the trial, but purportedly told police that Bashara forced him to strangle Jane in the couple's garage and then ordered him to leave her body in her Mercedes-Benz in a Detroit alley.
During the trial, Bashara was already in prison for trying to have Gentz killed in jail in 2012. Gentz is presently serving 17-to-28 years in prison after pleading guilty to second degree murder in the case.
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