Associated Press President Bush wields an axe during a snowfall as he helps volunteers work on the trail near the AuSable River in Wilmington, N.Y., yesterday. Bush marked Earth Day with a pitch for his air pollution-reduction strategy in New York state's Adirondack Mountains, which are threatened by acid rain.

LOS ANGELES - Tough-guy actor Robert Blake was charged yesterday with "personally and intentionally" killing his wife after a dinner outing last year in a case that could bring the death penalty.

Besides murder, Blake was charged with solicitation of murder, conspiracy and the special circumstance of lying in wait. Under California law, a special circumstance gives prosecutors the option of seeking a death sentence.

Prosecutors said Blake planned last May's killing for at least two months and once considered having her buried in the desert. The actor's bodyguard, Earle Caldwell, 46, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

Defense attorneys for the two men were not immediately available to comment.

Blake's wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, 44, was shot to death May 4, 2001, as she sat in her husband's car outside a restaurant where the couple had just dined. The couple had a daughter who will turn 2 in June.

Blake, 68, star of the 1970s detective series "Baretta," has said his wife was shot when he returned to the restaurant to retrieve a gun he had accidentally left behind. He was carrying the weapon, he said, to protect her from threats she received.

But in a criminal complaint, prosecutors said Blake "personally and intentionally" fired the handgun that killed Bakley.

According to the criminal complaint, Blake drove Bakley to dinner at Vitello's, parking his car behind a trash bin a block away from the Los Angeles restaurant.

When the couple returned to the car, Bakley sat in the passenger seat. Prosecutors say Blake "lowered the windows, got out of the car" holding the keys and shot his wife twice with a 9mm handgun.

He allegedly tossed the gun into a nearby Dumpster.

Prosecutors said Caldwell, at Blake's request, kept a list of items for use in the murder that read: "2 shovels, small sledge, crowbar, 25 auto, 'get blank gun ready,' old rugs, duct tape, Draino, pool acid, lye, plant."

Blake and Caldwell were arrested Thursday.

The actor married Bakley after she gave birth to a child she initially said was fathered either by Blake or Christian Brando. DNA tests showed Blake was the father and he married her. But Bakley was relegated to a cottage behind Blake's house.

After the killing, Blake's attorney sought to show that there could be many suspects other than the actor because Bakley ran a mail-order business soliciting money from lonely men who answered her ads in magazines and newspapers.

Police contend one man had the most potent motive - Robert Blake.

"We believe the motive is Robert Blake had contempt for Bonny Bakley," police Capt. Jim Tatreau said before charges were filed. "He felt he was trapped in a marriage that he wanted no part of and, quite frankly, the situation was not to his liking at all."