WILMINGTON, Del. - Erotic bedtime stories, rooftop pot-smoking sessions and suspicious phone calls were all fair game in the defense's cross-examination of Robert Bondar yesterday morning.
Bondar, the boyfriend of murder victim Irina Zlotnikov, returned to the witness stand yesterday to continue his testimony in the trial of Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya. Malinovskaya, Bondar's ex-girlfriend, is charged with first-degree murder.
In an effort to challenge the prosecution's argument that Malinovskaya was obsessed enough with Bondar to commit murder, the defense turned yesterday to an erotic e-mail that Bondar sent to Malinovskaya while he was dating Zlotnikov.
Defense attorney Eugene Maurer asked Bondar to read an excerpt from the so-called "Bedtime Story" e-mail, which contained references to "violent and passionate intercourse."
Previously, Bondar said that he wanted nothing to do with Malinovskaya sexually around the time he sent the e-mail.
"So to get her to stop pestering you, you send her an e-mail with constant erotic references?" Maurer asked.
"At the time, you don't really think about what you're doing," Bondar said.
Maurer also questioned Bondar's assertion that he wanted nothing to do with Malinovskaya by bringing up an incident in which the two smoked marijuana together in August 2004, after he began to date Zlotnikov in June.
"I didn't think it was a big deal at all," Bondar said.
The defense's cross-examination ended with questions about a phone call that Bondar made on the day of the murder to Zlotnikov's cell phone.
Bondar had previously testified to police that the voice of the person who answered had not sounded familiar, and he did not immediately assume it was Malinovskaya using Zlotnikov's phone.
Following the cross-examination, prosecutors asked Bondar several additional questions. To support the contention that Malinovskaya continued to contact Bondar through the fall of 2004, prosecutors pointed out 28 calls from Malinovskaya between Sept. 9 and Oct. 8, 2004, only seven of which Bondar returned.
The rest of the day was devoted to witnesses who lived in the apartment complex where the murder took place.
The first witness, James Downs, testified that the day before the murder he saw a woman sitting in a car in the parking lot of the apartment complex.
Downs said she stayed there for at least four hours, but he did not see her enter or exit the apartment building.
When asked to identify the woman in the car, Downs pointed to Malinovskaya.
Mary Burnell, another Malinovskaya lawyer, asked Downs why he was able to identify the defendant today but had not been able to pick her out of a photo lineup last December.
"My recollection is better today," Downs said.
The trial is scheduled to continue this morning at 9:30 a.m. at the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington, Del.
