TIGblogs - Dennis Dames

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

Former ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne yesterday told the jury in his attempted extortion trial that "I know that it appears as if we're guilty, but we're not" as he made his unsworn statement from the bar.

Lightbourne told the jury that he was confident that he would be found innocent.

"I'm not really worried about this trial," Lightbourne said. "If I sound arrogant, I'm not. I'm standing on (God's) word."

Lightbourne asked the jury to send him and co-accused, former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater, home to their families.

Lightbourne and Bridgewater are accused of attempting to extort $25 million from American actor John Travolta in exchange for the suppression of a document and allegations that Travolta played a part in his 16-year-old son Jett Travolta's death in Grand Bahama on January 2.

Lightbourne also said yesterday that emergency medical technician (EMT) Derrex Rolle — who testified against Lightbourne on September 22 — came to his house a week before the trial started and told him that Minister of Health Dr. Hubert Minnis and other public health officials orchestrated the falsification of a government report in order to make the Rand Memorial Hospital look good.

Lightbourne said Rolle told him that he (Rolle) was promised a promotion to a supervisory position if he would rewrite his original report regarding Jett's death, to reflect that the teenager was still alive when he and Lightbourne arrived on the scene at Old Bahama Bay the morning of January 2.

Rolle testified that Jett showed "no signs of life" that morning. Lightbourne said Rolle told him that he was told what to say during his testimony.

Lightbourne also alleged that Jett's real time and cause of death were covered up for unspecified reasons.

He said that when he was in the room with Jett, he heard Dr. Romeo Fernandez making a pact with several other people in the room to participate in a cover-up and claimed Fernandez asked him to participate in a cover-up that could make them a lot of money.

"This death has a lot of suspicious circumstances around it," Lightbourne said.

In fact, Lightbourne said many visitors to The Bahamas take advantage of the country's dependence on tourism to murder their family members.

"They come here to do their dirt, kill their loved ones, go back home, collect their insurance money and leave us here to fight in the process," he said. "They laugh at us and call us a banana republic and are basically calling us monkeys."

Lightbourne said it is his view that the laws in The Bahamas ought to be changed in order that a coroner's inquest be conducted into every death, Bahamian or foreign.

Lightbourne also claimed that Bahamas Public Service Union (BPSU) President John Pinder asked him for a cut of money Lightbourne was going to receive for an interview with American TV show Inside Edition.

He also said that Pinder told him that it was okay to do the interview as long as he didn't "make the hospital look bad."

Lightbourne was subsequently suspended from his job at the Rand Memorial Hospital for participating in that interview. He said when he went to Grand Bahama-based BPSU Vice President John Curtis, who also allegedly told him to do the interview, he was told that "he would see what he could do."

Lightbourne said Travolta's lawyer Michael McDermott approached him to purchase the document. The document, if signed, releases the emergency medical staff of the Rand Memorial Hospital from any liability if a patient is not treated or transferred to the hospital. Travolta previously testified that he signed such a document.

Lightbourne said that when he met McDermott he felt as if he was "looking into the eyes of a demon."

McDermott and Lightbourne met in the lawyer's room at the Sheraton Resort on Cable Beach on January 20. Police videotaped that meeting.

Lightbourne said that he was uneasy during the meeting and repeatedly asked if he was being recorded.

He claimed that a portion of the meeting was missing from the tape, which starts when the conversation between McDermott and Lightbourne had already begun.

He said that during the meeting he realized that he was being set-up, "so I just answered what he wanted to hear."

"As far as I know, I was just selling them this piece of paper with John Travolta's signature on it," he told the jury. "If I wanted to I could have just called Travolta (who left his phone number on the refusal to transport document)."

Lightbourne told the jury that he is no criminal and the entire ordeal has finally helped him realize his purpose: To serve God.

The trial continues today.

October 15, 2009

thenassauguardian

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