'Master Bob' Bashara gives exclusive prison interview

Bob tearfully claimed his trusty handyman Joe Gentz strangled the life out of his loving wife over a few measly bucks. But Gentz spoke to Crime Watch Daily on the phone from jail. Asked if he killed Jane Bashara, he replied: "Well, yeah and no."

Gentz says Bob Bashara was a master at manipulation, and forced him to kill Jane while Bob watched.

"That was a case of domestic violence gone absolutely mad," said Wayne County, Mich. Superior Court Judge Vonda Evans.

It's a case with more turns than the doorknob to Bob's secret sex dungeon.

"People didn't just follow this case -- it was an obsession," said WXYZ-TV investigative reporter Jim Kiertzner.

Now "Master Bob" is cracking the whip from behind bars, talking exclusively to Crime Watch Daily in a jailhouse confessional.

"I'm a Christian and a pacifist and I don't believe in violence," Bashara said.

Bob and Jane Bashara were the picture of happiness and wealth in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, an upscale neighborhood of Detroit.

Jane's body was found broken and stuffed in the back of her luxury SUV in an east Detroit alley, just a few miles away from Grosse Pointe Park, on January 25, 2012.

Bob, the son of an appellate judge, had lived in Grosse Pointe Park his whole life and owned a number of properties around town. Jane, a self-made marketing executive, had worked her way into high society, and by most accounts had become the real breadwinner in the family.

"At some point Bob developed an affinity for the BDSM community," said Steve Miller, author of Murder in Grosse Pointe Park: Privilege, Adultery, and the Killing of Jane Bashara. "He got introduced to a sexually alternative lifestyle."

Bob became obsessed with drug-fueled parties and sex slaves, even operating his own erotic dungeon.

In public, after Jane's murder, Bob played the part of the grieving husband. But police are not buying the tears, and they name Bob a person of interest and haul him in for questioning.

"Let me tell you gentlemen, I have wracked my brain. I have tried to come up with as much speculation and thought and what could've happened to her," Bob tells investigators during his interrogation.

Bob reportedly failed a lie-detector test. But investigators needed hard evidence.

A 6-foot-4-inch mountain of a man named Joseph Gentz walks into the police station, and to the shock of everyone, confesses to the crime.

What's more? The handyman says he killed Jane Bashara at the request of his occasional employer, Bob Bashara, for $8,000 and a used Cadillac.

Prosecutors make a deal to reduce Gentz's charge to second-degree murder in exchange for his testimony at Bob's trial.

But before Bob would stand trial for Jane's murder, Bob is busted for ordering a hit on Joe Gentz.

"I foolishly and regrettably offered to pay Steve Tibaudo to find someone to kill Joseph Gentz," Bob said in court.

Bob was sentenced to a minimum of six years behind bars. But that wasn't even close to the biggest surprise to come.

"This was a situation where a very prominent man in the community ultimately had his wife murdered," said Judge Vonda Evans.

Evans has been sitting on the bench for 18 years. She thought she'd seen and heard it all until Bob Bashara appeared in her court on charges of conspiring to murder his wife.

Asked to describe Bob Bashara's character, Evans replied: "Manipulative. Cunning. Dangerous."

At trial, prosecutors paraded out mistress after mistress. The prosecution's theory is that Bob wanted to get rid of prudish Jane so he could pursue his secret sex-crazed life style.

Bob's own daughter even testified against her father.

Bob Bashara inadvertently acts as his own character witness, seductively licking his lips in full view of the bench. Bob is ultimately found guilty of five counts, including conspiring to murder his wife. He's sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Case closed? Not even close

Immediately after his conviction, Bob petitions for a new trial, claiming he wasn't properly represented. It's a common maneuver. Bob suddenly gets help from the last person anyone suspected: the handyman, Joe Gentz.

Gentz, who originally said Bob hired him to kill Jane, changes his story entirely, giving Judge Evans an affidavit saying that Bob had nothing to do with Jane's murder.

"The affidavit, Bob Bashara believed, to me, would be his gift of freedom," said Evans.

Asked if Bob hired him to do anything at all to Jane, Gentz said "no" during Crime Watch Daily's exclusive phone interview with Gentz from jail.

Asked if he killed Jane on his own, Gentz says: "Well, I'm gonna tell you what -- there was actually four people in the same place. That's it."

Was Bob there?

"I'm not gonna say that," said Gentz.

Would Gentz's new testimony help or hurt Bashara's case for a new trial?

"Joe Gentz's testimony was a Trojan horse," said Judge Evans.

With a much more frail-looking Bob Bashara sitting right behind him, Joe Gentz stands before Judge Evans.

Before Gentz could utter a single word, Evans instructed him that if his second statement contradicted his first, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. Gentz seems ready to face the consequences.

"He said 'I have to tell the story, I have to tell the truth,'" said Evans.

But on the stand, Gentz once again stuns everyone. Under oath, he flips his story again and points the finger for Jane's murder right back at Bob.

"I went over there to move boxes," Gentz says on the stand. "Next thing I know, he pulls a gun on me and says 'Shut her up.' They were arguing still, and he says 'Do it now!' So I broke her neck -- yes, to be honest, I did do that."

"I often ask the witnesses in my courtroom to use words to paint a picture," said Evans. "Joe was Picasso. He went through each detail. His order to murder Jane, the ultimate killing of Jane, and disposal of Jane's body, like common trash."

"After she was dead, he walks over, her top was open, he goes over to her and then he says 'I'm sorry baby, I didn't mean it,'" Gentz says on the stand.

Asked if Joe Gentz is a victim, Judge Vonda Evans said: "Some people are born to fail, and unfortunately he was. Handicapped by not only his mental capabilities, but his social upbringing. Bob realized that and took advantage of that, and began to manipulate him."

"I haven't had a chance to truly tell my story," Bob Bashara says from behind bars in an exclusive phone interview with Crime Watch Daily.

This is the brand new story the world has never heard about Bob Bashara, told by Bob himself

"As far as my wife's death, I had absolutely nothing to do with it," Bashara says. "And I will say that until my last and dying breath."

He is sitting in a prison outside Detroit, Michigan convicted of hiring a hitman to kill his wife Jane.

One of our Crime Watch Daily investigative producers got a surprise call on our prison hotline from Bob Bashara himself.

"My concern is certainly just that the truth and justice be served and comes out," says Bashara.

He says he wants to tell his side of the story.

"That's all this case was about: my violation of the marital bed," says Bashara.

Bob tells our producer he had absolutely nothing to do with Jane's murder.

"Joe Gentz has admitted killing my wife," says Bashara. "I had absolutely -- I did not hire him, I did not solicit him, I did not conspire with him.

"I'm not a gun person, I'm a pacifist, I'm a Christian and a pacifist, and I don't believe in violence, I don't believe in guns," says Bashara. "The guy was so filled with lies and b.s. that it's incredible."

Bashara tells Crime Watch Daily he's sitting in jail because the Grosse Point Park Police Department had a bulls-eye on his back.

"The police were so after me, so wanting to target me because of my stance on race," says Bashara.

Jane and Bob were living in the Gross Pointe Park when Jane was murdered. Bob says he was renting low-income apartments he owned in the area, and the police didn't like some of his tenants, who were Armenian and African-American.

"It's a thorn in their side because they don't want low-income communities in their cities," says Bashara. "It's like Ferguson, Missouri, but police officers didn't shoot anyone."

Police call Bashara's allegations absurd. Now he is even lashing out at Judge Vonda Evans, accusing her of siding with the prosecution.

"Here's the thing: the judge is as crooked as can be," Bashara tells Crime Watch Daily.

"To those that question my methods and my techniques: I understand. I'm not here to please anyone," said Evans. "I'm here to be a tool of justice."

Bashara accuses Evans of getting caught up in the kinky sex talk and not sticking with the facts.

"She allowed the prosecution to parade 10, or eight or 10, quote-unquote 'life-stylers' before the jury, and there was no focus on the crime scene, the evidence. They're absolutely complicitous with the prosecution," says Bashara.

"I had been 18 years a judge, had many high-profile cases, but nothing prepared me for the national coverage that this case received," said Judge Evans. "At points I felt I was on trial with the way that I dressed, the way that I said things to Mr. Bashara, just the way that I handled myself."

"And you can say, 'Hey, I've got sour grapes, I'm blaming everyone else,'" says Bashara. "All these different things add up to wrongful conviction."

"There was a request to recuse me as the judge, and he, through his attorney, indicated that No, he wanted me to preside over this case," said Evans.

But Judge Vonda Evans says the right man is behind bars

"I couldn't let the media or anyone else take me off my focus, and that was the pursuit of justice," said Evans. "It was assuring that Bob Bashara had a fair trial and that Jane's story could be told."

Crime Watch Daily pressed Bob to tell us Jane's story, and why anyone would possibly want to kill her.

"My wife is truly the victim, OK, because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I become the victim," says Bashara.

"I certainly appreciate your time, you know, again, I am going to fight until I can fight no more, OK, until my eyes bleed, my hands are raw, and I take my last breath, because I am an innocent man wrongly convicted," says Bashara.

"Many individuals who saw the trial were saddened, they were angered, but hopefully there will be lives that will be changed so that we don't ever -- me or any other judge -- ever has to see another Jane Bashara," says Judge Vonda Evans.