LOS ANGELES (AP) – Like O.J. Simpson a decade ago, tough-guy actor Robert Blake was cleared of murder charges, only to be hit with $30 million in damages by a civil jury that concluded he was behind the slaying after all.

A jury on Friday ordered the former “Baretta” star to pay wife Bonny Lee Bakley’s children for her 2001 killing in his car outside a restaurant where the couple had just eaten dinner.

After eight days of deliberations, jurors determined by a vote of 10-2 that Blake “intentionally caused the death” of Bakley, who was gunned down on May 4, 2001.

Blake, 72, dressed in a black suit and tie, looked down as the verdicts were read. He left court immediately.

The plaintiffs had argued that Blake either killed Bakley himself or hired someone to do so. The jury was not asked to decide which theory it believed. However, the panel decided that Blake’s handyman, Earle Caldwell, did not collaborate in the killing.

None of Bakley’s four children were in the courtroom when the verdict was read. Daughter Holly Gawron said in a phone interview from Memphis, Tenn., that she was ecstatic.

“It’s been a nightmare, but now it’s time to repair our lives and move on,” said Gawron, 25, who added that the verdict was more important than the monetary award.

“I know there isn’t any money to recover from him,” Gawron said. “I’m not interested in the money.”

The children’s attorney, Eric Dubin, said he was “not worried” about whether Blake, who claims he is broke, will pay the damages.

“I have every reason to believe he will pay,” Dubin said.

Jury foreman Bob Horn said the actor hurt his case during his eight days of testimony. “We believe that Mr. Blake was probably his worst enemy on the stand,” Horn said outside court.

While testifying, Blake lashed out at Dubin and elicited laughter from jurors, lodging his own objections and calling the lawyer “chief,” “junior” or “sonny.”

“We expected Mr. Blake to conduct himself in a professional manner,” juror David Lopez said. “He was always very angry, back and forth with Mr. Dubin.”

A juror from Blake’s criminal trial said she disagreed with Friday’s civil verdict, adding it was possible someone from Bakley’s past could have been involved in her murder.

“The evidence did not point to him,” Cecilia Maldonado told MSNBC. “There was just nothing that would make him guilty of it. You couldn’t believe any of the witnesses. They were useless.”

The plaintiffs argued that Blake either killed Bakley himself or hired someone to do so. The jury was not asked to decide which theory it believed.

Blake was acquitted at his criminal trial last March. Bakley’s children sued the actor in 2002, claiming he should be held responsible for their mother’s death and forced to pay damages.

Similarly, O.J. Simpson was acquitted at a criminal trial in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife and a friend of hers, but two years later the former football star was found responsible for the slayings in a civil case and was ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages.

Reached Friday by The Associated Press, Simpson questioned the system that allowed both celebrity defendants to be found liable for murder after being acquitted in criminal court.

“I still don’t get how anyone can be found not guilty of a murder and then be found responsible for it in any way shape or form,” Simpson said in a phone interview from his Florida home. “… I’d love to hear how that’s not double jeopardy.”

He said he had no opinion about Blake’s guilt or innocence in the slaying because he did not follow either trial closely.

Unlike Blake’s criminal trial, where 12 jurors had to decide guilt unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt, the civil wrongful-death case required only that nine of 12 jurors believe by a “preponderance” of the evidence that Blake was responsible for the crime.

Dubin contended that Blake despised Bakley, believing she trapped him into marriage by getting pregnant, and that he decided to get rid of her so he could raise his adored daughter, Rosie, by himself.

Blake did not testify in the criminal trial but took the stand in the civil case and denied the allegations.

He said that on the night of the killing, he left the 44-year-old Bakley in the car while he went back inside the restaurant to retrieve a gun he carried for protection but had accidentally left in their booth. Blake said he found Bakley wounded when he went back out to the car.

Blake’s lawyer, Peter Ezzell, argued there were many people who wanted Bakley dead. He portrayed her as a grifter who preyed on lonely men, selling them nude pictures of herself and extracting money with promises of sex and marriage. She was on probation for fraud when Blake married her.

Ezzell also suggested that Christian Brando, Marlon Brando’s son, killed Bakley. Bakley at one time claimed Christian Brando had fathered her child, and the jury listened to a taped telephone conversation in which Brando told Bakley she was lucky someone didn’t put a bullet in her head.

The younger Brando took the stand and refused to testify, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Also, a criminalist testified for Blake that there were only scant traces of gunshot residue on the actor’s clothing the night of the killing.

Prosecutors at the criminal trial relied heavily on the testimony of two stuntmen who claimed Blake tried to get them to kill his wife. But their credibility was undermined by testimony about their extensive drug use.

Dubin used testimony from the criminal trial from one of the stuntmen and called the other as a witness. The attorney also used depositions from Blake, an investigator who worked for the actor and others to claim that Blake had a plan to kidnap Rosie and get Bakley arrested and jailed, and if that failed, to have Bakley killed.

Blake got his start as sad-eyed Mickey in the “Our Gang” movie shorts and gained critical acclaim for his role as a murderer in the 1967 movie “In Cold Blood.” Later he starred as a street-wise detective in TV’s “Baretta” during the 1970s.