Bashara in court asking for new trial

DETROIT (WJBK) - Bob Bashara is back in court after being convicted of arranging his wife's death. His mission: get a new trial and he says his attorneys are to blame.

Bashara is currently serving a life sentence behind bars for his wife's murder in 2012. Tuesday in court, Bashara waived his attorney-client privilege. His new attorney, Robert Ambrose, claims his client was given ineffective assistance of counsel, and that they didn't present all the evidence or call all witnesses in his murder trial.

Bashara says the jury wasn't given enough evidence to see that Jane Bashara didn't care about his lifestyle of bondage and domination. He says he had no motive to have a handyman strangle his wife at their Grosse Pointe Park home in 2012.

Bashara's former attorneys, Michael McCarthy and Lillian Diallo, took the stand. The judge warned him that by waiving his right, those witnesses can get on the stand and disclose information that was told to them in confidence.

His new attorney, Ronald Ambrose said Bashara had several things he wanted his attorneys to pursue, but they didn't.

"There are witnesses that mr bashara wanted to be called and evidence that he wanted out there that was not presented," Ambrose said in court on Tuesday.

Diallo testifying they didn't seek a change of venue despite all the publicity because Bashara wanted to be here. She also said when evidence helpful to bashara was revealed late in the case, they used it.

"I'm pretty quick so I was able to come up to speed. He could have given it to me 33 seconds before I used it and it was used, buddy," Diallo said.

Ambrose suggested McCarthy should have told jurors about a previously undisclosed medical condition that Bashara said Jane suffered from. That condition, Bashara said, made sex painful for her and caused him tos eek pleasure elsewhere in the BDSM lifestyle.

"To me, we'd already had enough of the seedy, low, disgusting information regarding this lifestyle" McCarthy said. "It really was irrrelevant. I didn't want to drag the good name of Jane Bashara into the mud by revealing some of these irrelevant personal intimate details."

McCarthy said there was testimony at the trial that Jane did not want to participate in Bashara's BDSM lifestyle. Tuesday's testimony evaluated why he participated with Jane.

"I think Bob Bashara suffered erectile dysfunction, like he said in his own affidavit, he's overweight, he's got diabetes. That's got nothing to do with Jane Bashara," McCarthy said. "I didn't go down that road and in hindsight, it wasn't a road that shouldn't have been taken and he didn't get convicted because I didn't go down that road.

The hearing resumes Wednesday morning.