BDSM MEDIA NEWS!!!!
October 29, 2014
Bashara told agent: How could I kill if I'm Rotary president?
Source: Freep.com. - Freep.com - USA
USA - While being questioned two days after his wife was found strangled, Bob Bashara pointed to the Rotary pin he was wearing.
"How could I have killed my wife if I was president of the Rotary Club?" he said.
Mark O'Riordan, with the U.S. Secret Service, told jurors about his Jan. 27, 2012, interview of Bashara during Bashara's murder trial Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court.
Bashara, 56, of Grosse Pointe Park admitted to O'Riordan that he cheated on his wife, Jane Bashara, eight years earlier, but denied being involved in an affair at the time.
"He said that the state of his marriage was going well," O'Riordan testified. "There was no major problems with it."
Bashara also told O'Riordan that he planned to get a new house with his wife.
But the day's main witness indicated that Bashara claim of fidelity was a lie.
Janet Leehmann testified that Bashara flew to Oregon in January 2012, less than two weeks before his wife's murder, and the two had a sexual relationship. Bashara told her he was divorced, she said.
Bashara now faces first-degree murder and other charges in the death of his wife, Jane Bashara.
Prosecutors have said Bashara engaged in alternative sexual lifestyle that involved bondage, discipline and sadomasochism, planned a new life and directed his former handyman Joseph Gentz to kill his wife -- a claim Bashara has repeatedly denied.
Leehmann said that while Bashara was visiting her in Oregon, she overheard an angry telephone conversation he had with his handyman. But she said Bashara didn't mention Gentz by name.
"I want this done. I want it done now," she heard him say. "I want it done before I get back."
At the time, Leehmann testified, she thought the handyman had maybe put a bathtub in upside down.
Leehmann said she met Bashara on alt.com - an alternative lifestyle website -- and the two started communicating in late November 2011. Bashara -- who Leehmann referred to as Master Bob -- said he and Rachel Gillett, his longtime mistress, were looking for a third person to join them in a relationship.
Bashara asked Leehmann about relocating to Grosse Pointe from Oregon and told her his father was "a big-time judge."
She received a Christmas gift from Bashara that December: a $25 gift card to the Olive Garden and a leather string to wear on her wrist as a symbol of his ownership of her.
"You are to wear it on your left wrist and not wear it around your neck until I'm there to put it there myself," he wrote her.
Before he arrived in Oregon, Leehmann testified, Bashara sent her a message that said: "Soon you will feel my strength and passion."
But what she got during his Jan. 12-15 stay was a beating that left marks on her body for about three months, she said.
Leehmann testified it was painful to talk about. She thought she was getting into some light bondage and a little whipping during Bashara's visit.
"It was awful," she said.
Under questioning by one of Bashara's attorneys, Michael McCarthy, Leehmann said she was with Bashara when he bought a whip and rope.
Bashara had a "big wad of cash," paid for meals at restaurants, went to a mountain ski resort with her, and they watched a football game, she said.
Later that month, she heard about Jane Bashara's murder.
"I was horrified about it," Leehmann said.
Bob Bashara told her that if anyone asked about him, she should say they were just "good friends." He asked her to stop communicating with him.
"He wanted to keep his phone lines clear," Leehmann testified.
But Bashara did communicate with her, saying he wanted Leehmann to buy Gillett a plane ticket, bring her to Oregon and hide her from police at her father's ranch, she told jurors.
She refused, contacted police and sought a restraining order against Bashara.
Earlier in the day, FBI Special Agent Christopher Hess testified that on Jan. 24, 2012, at 6:26 p.m. both Bob Bashara's and Jane Bashara's cell phones used a tower near their home. Shortly after that, Jane Bashara's phone began to move north, and call detail records indicate Bob Bashara's phone also moved after that.
Jane Bashara was found strangled in the back of her Mercedes SUV on Detroit's east side on Jan. 25, 2012.
Bashara has repeatedly denied involvement in his wife's murder and one of his defense attorneys has said Gentz is a "weapon on his own without anybody encouraging him."
The day Jane Bashara was discovered dead, Mary Morey testified, Gentz flashed cash, which she estimated to be between $800 and $900. Gentz worked for her at her shop in Eastern Market and told Morey he was expecting a large sum of money and wanted to use it to purchase a vehicle, Morey testified.
Bashara's trial before Wayne County Circuit Judge Vonda Evans will continue Thursday morning.
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