Jury Deliberates In Bob Bashara Murder Trial

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - Bob Bashara's trial is now in the hands of a Wayne County jury. The former Rotary Club president from Grosse Pointe Park is charged with arranging his wife's murder while he was having affairs and exploring bondage and masochism with other women.

A jury of nine men and three women deliberated for a few hours Thursday in a Wayne County court after a day and-a-half of closing arguments and instructions from the judge.

They'll return Friday — Bashara's 57th birthday.

There's no dispute that Bashara was having an affair. Prosecutors say he wanted his wife out of the way so he could pursue a new life with others, who referred to him as "Master Bob" as part of an alternative sexual lifestyle known as BDSM.

A handyman, Joe Gentz, admits he strangled Jane Bashara at the couple's Grosse Pointe Park home in 2012. He's in prison for second-degree murder but refused to testify against Bob Bashara.

Prosecutor Rob Moran says there's a "ton of motive" for Bashara to want his wife dead — painting the defendant as being obsessed with his mistress, Rachel Gillett.

The defense counters that his affair was just a fling — and that he wouldn't want to kill Jane because she was the breadwinner in the household.

Defense attorney Michael McCarthy says Bashara could have continued his affairs without having his wife killed.

Bashara's other defense attorney, Lillian Diallo, said police targeted Bashara from the start and won't accept that Gentz could have acted on his own. She even made a reference to the highly publicized case of Eric Garner, who said, "I can't breathe," while in a police chokehold in New York.

The prosecutor balked at that.

"The only one who could not breathe in this case was Jane Bashara. ... That's what this case is all about," Moran said.

Among important evidence the jury will consider, WWJ's Marie Osborne reports, "Bob called Gentz 23 times, according to phone records, the day before the murder? Why would he just be calling a handyman for that purpose?"

Prosecutors pointed out that the only link between Gentz and the victim was Bob Bashara.

Bashara is in prison for trying to have Gentz killed in jail in 2012. He's eligible for parole in that case in 2019.

[Continuing Coverage: Bashara Murder Trial]

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