There she met an immigrant named Evangelos Paulakis, who needed to get married in order to stay in the United States.
In 1995, she was arrested for attempting to pass two bad checks from an account of a Memphis record company; she was fined $1,000 and sentenced to work on a penal farm on weekends after she plea bargained down to lesser charges.
Brando pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to ten years in prison.
[16] While Bakley was involved with Christian Brando, she dated actor Robert Blake, whom she met at a jazz club in 1999.
Bakley and Rose lived in a small guest house beside Blake's residence in Studio City, California.
The relationship was reportedly rocky; Blake was distrustful of Bakley and hired a private investigator to find more information about her.
Her eighth husband was Glynn Wolfe, famous for holding the record for the largest number of monogamous marriages.
On May 4, 2001, Blake took Bakley to dinner at Vitello's Restaurant on Tujunga Avenue in Studio City, Los Angeles.
Afterward, Bakley was killed by a gunshot wound to the head while sitting in the passenger seat of Blake's black 1991 Dodge Stealth, which was parked on a side street around the corner from the restaurant.
Law professor Laurie Levenson stated the prosecution established a possible motive for murder (Blake's vitriol towards Bakley due to his belief she'd tricked him into fathering a child to access his wealth) but had failed beyond that to prove Blake directly or indirectly was responsible for killing her.
[20] CBS News legal analyst David Hancock wrote "there was no single part of their case that was strong enough to overcome the many weak links.
"[21] Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, commenting on this ruling, called Blake a "miserable human being" and the jurors "incredibly stupid."
Blake's defense team and members of the jury responded by stating that the prosecution had failed to prove its case.
The trial included a famous Perry Mason moment when Eric Dubin, the attorney for Bakley's family, called the girlfriend of Blake's longtime bodyguard and co-defendant Earle Caldwell to the stand and asked if she believed they were involved in the crime, something no one had asked her before.
[3] In 2006, Blake filed for bankruptcy, with debts of $3 million for unpaid legal fees as well as state and federal taxes.
[26] On April 26, 2008, an appeals court upheld the civil case verdict, but cut Blake's penalty assessment in half, to $15 million.