Extortion isn’t the kind of crime you generally associate with a smoking gun, but it looks like secret police videos may have nailed the alleged extortionists in the John Travolta case as they haggled over how much to bilk the star for.
Tarino Lightbourne and Pleasant Bridgewater were allegedly overheard demanding John Travolta’s lawyers pay millions in return for them not making public a document related to the treatment of his son Jett, who passed away in January.
Bridgewater, an attorney and former Bahamian Senator, was supposedly heard on tape demanding millions of dollars, while Lightbourne, a paramedic, is apparently outraged that Bridgewater demanded what he considered such a paltry sum.
His demand was exponentially higher than hers, law enforcement sources believe.
While it’s being reported that the pair allegedly demanded $25 million, TMZ sources say they finally agreed to $15 million. The extortion trial began this week.
Tarino Lightbourne and Pleasant Bridgewater: Some shady characters.
They believed Travolta would cough up the sum to keep private a document he signed releasing paramedics of liability and ordering his son flown to the U.S., rather than a hospital in the Bahamas, after he suffered a seizure.
However, Jett was ultimately taken to the hospital anyway, meaning these two idiots were trying to extort an eight-figure sum for basically nothing.
Lawyers for Bridgewater and Lightbourne will move to suppress the videos in which they allegedly haggle, on grounds they were illegally recorded.
An interesting wrinkle straight out of Days of Our Lives: One of the Bahamian cops in the sting was badly injured “under suspicious circumstances.”
The officer is thus is unable to testify.
John Travolta, who testified yesterday and acknowledged Jett’s autism for the first time, left the Bahamas but will return next week to complete testimony.