TIGblogs - Dennis Dames

BY JUAN MCCARTNEY ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ juan@nasguard.com:

An attorney for American celebrity John Travolta testified yesterday that former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater agreed to accept $10 million to turn over a document she and her client, ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne, believed would implicate the actor in his 16-year-old son's death on Grand Bahama on January 2.

Lightbourne and Bridgewater are accused of attempting to extort money from Travolta.

Michael McDermott told the court that Bridgewater had initially said Lightbourne wanted $25 million for the document.

McDermott said Bridgewater accepted the $10 million offer on behalf of Lightbourne even after the American attorney "got very angry" and threatened to do everything he could to ruin him one week earlier.

"I said to her 'do you realize what you are doing constitutes a criminal offense, specifically extortion, in the United States?'," said McDermott, referencing a telephone conversation he said he had with her on January 12.

"I then told her 'you are playing a very dangerous game lady. I do not assent to your demands. I will go to the police. You are in big trouble. We will spare no expense publishing this in the newspapers in the islands of The Bahamas. So that is what we will be doing. He (Lightbourne) will be a pariah. There will be nowhere in The Bahamas that he can go that everyone will not know what he has done'."

McDermott testified that Bridgewater replied that Lightbourne had "already taken that into consideration and frankly he doesn't care."

The Florida attorney said that he initially got in touch with Bridgewater that day through West End and Bimini MP Obie Wilchcombe.

"I called Mr. Wilchcombe and he handed the phone to Ms. Bridgewater," McDermott testified.

McDermott said that over the next few days he had conversations with Travolta, the actor's Bahamian attorneys and police officials, who he worked with as part of a sting operation that targeted Bridgewater and Lightbourne.

McDermott added that in a telephone conversation at 3:30 p.m. on January 19, Bridgewater claimed that Lightbourne had reduced his original demand.

"She indicated that her client had dropped his demand to $15 million," McDermott testified yesterday. "She indicated that this was the bottom line and she indicated that she was ready to receive the funds. I told her I would get back to her."

When he did get back to her, McDermott said, he told her that Travolta would pay her $10 million "in installments of $2.5 million over a four-year period of time."

"I understood that we had a deal," McDermott said.

McDermott said that he met with Bridgewater at his room in the Sheraton Resort on Cable Beach at around 10:30 a.m. on January 19.

"I met her in the lobby and brought her up to my room (328)," McDermott said. "We talked briefly and I told her that I would feel more comfortable in a secure location rather than talking in the lobby. She said she did not want to be in the lobby because she was recognizable. So my room worked as well."

McDermott said that he had previously given police permission to wire his body and outfit the room and its telephone with monitoring devices.

He said he met with Bridgewater in his room that morning for about 40 minutes. He and several police officers who have given testimony in the trial have said that meeting was videotaped.

That videotape has been entered into evidence.

McDermott further testified that he spoke with Bridgewater by telephone three more times that day.

He said he met with Lightbourne in that same room on January 20. That meeting, he noted, was also videotaped.

McDermott then said that Bridgewater first conveyed the threat and a demand for money from Travolta to him on January 12.

"The threat was to go ahead and release false information regarding Mr. Travolta and his son. And the document was the mere corroboration of that fact," he said.

"The threat was to incriminate an otherwise innocent gentleman for the purpose of getting money. That was the threat."

McDermott said that on January 20, Bridgewater e-mailed him wire instructions on how to electronically transfer the money.

That e-mail was produced in court and entered into evidence yesterday.

Bridgewater and Lightbourne were arrested and charged with attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion on January 23.

The trial continues today.

Friday, October 2, 2009

thenassauguardian

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