TIGblogs - Dennis Dames

By JUAN MCCARTNEY, Guardian Senior Reporter, juan@nasguard.com:

A Royal Bahamas Police Force detective yesterday testified that he was part of a team of officers who set up an undercover sting operation at the Sheraton Resort on Cable Beach earlier this year in order to make audio and video recordings of former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater's conversations with Michael McDermott, an attorney for American actor John Travolta.

Bridgewater and ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne are accused of conspiring and attempting to extort $25 million from Travolta after his 16-year-old son Jett Travolta died at the Old Bahama Bay Resort on January 2.

Despite the presence of an elaborate display of audio/visual equipment, and entering the physical tapes of those recordings into evidence in court yesterday, the contents were not played.

The Nassau Guardian understands that the tapes will be played in court today.

Detective Inspector Sean Saunders yesterday told the court that he and another officer (Assistant Superintendent of Police Detective Ricardo Taylor) went to room 328 at the Sheraton on Sunday, January 18, to record a telephone conversation between McDermott and a "lady...identifying herself as Pleasant".

He had a tape of that alleged conversation in court yesterday.

Saunders said that on Monday, January 19, just before 8 a.m., he and Taylor returned to the room with a Constable 1492 Strachan, to speak with McDermott.

"As a result, I configured a transmitter with concealed cameras and microphones to the room," said Saunders, adding that McDermott gave the officers permission to record the conversations that day and the day before.

Saunders said that after gaining McDermott's permission, they then fitted the attorney with a "body wire" which would effectively capture all audio in his vicinity.

Saunders said that the police then went to room 326 (which was right next to room 328) and set up a receiving station where they could monitor what happened in the other room.

He said that around 10:20 a.m. McDermott left the room and returned about five minutes later with a lady.

"The lady I saw on the monitor was Ms. Pleasant Bridgewater," Saunders told the court.

When asked how he knew that the person in the room was Bridgewater, Saunders said that he had served off and on as Sergeant-at-Arms in the House of Assembly from 1998 to 2005, and had seen Bridgewater there repeatedly.

Bridgewater served as the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Member of Parliament for Marco City from 2002 to 2007.

He also said that he knew Bridgewater as a public figure from television and other media. He then pointed her out in court.

The tapes and Saunders' testimony elicited several objections from defense attorneys yesterday, even though Senior Justice Anita Allen ruled on Friday that the tapes were admissible as evidence.

The information about the tapes came to light yesterday afternoon, following the testimony of longtime Travolta employee Robert Zupancic yesterday morning.

Zupancic, who said he has worked for Travolta for 23 years, told the court that between January 13 and January 16 McDermott told him that he had been negotiating with Bridgewater about a payout to one of her clients in order to suppress a document that could be "incriminating" to Travolta.

"(McDermott) told me that he'd been contacted by an attorney from The Bahamas named Pleasant Bridgewater, and that she had a client who was the first to arrive on the scene January 2 and that he attended to Jett and that he was the ambulance driver," said Zupancic, who added that McDermott told him Bridgewater said that her client also, "had a document that he contended was incriminating to John Travolta and that they were going to release that to the international media if we didn't pay them $25 million."

He said McDermott also told him that Bridgewater and the ambulance driver "had a made-up story to go" along with the document.

Zupancic said that on January 16, he repeated everything exactly as McDermott told him back to Travolta.

Zupancic did not indicate what Travolta said, but he did say that he responded to the news.

Under cross-examination by Bridgewater's attorney, Murrio Ducille, Zupancic acknowledged that he did not give his police statement until three months after his conversation with McDermott in January. He also admitted that he did not write down the conversation between himself and McDermott at the time.

"I normally wouldn't write down that someone wants $25 million from someone," Zupancic said. "I wouldn't want anyone to read that."

Zupancic claimed that he was the "go between" for McDermott and Travolta, although he did "put them on the telephone prior to any action."

He also admitted that he did not include that information in his police statement.

Krysta Smith also represents Bridgewater. Carlson Shurland and Mary Bain represent Lightbourne. Chief prosecutor Bernard Turner, Garvin Gaskin and Neil Braithwaite are prosecuting the case.

September 29, 2009

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