John Travolta employee says 2 accused in Bahamas threatened to release private info to media

John Travolta employee testifies at Bahamas trial

NASSAU, Bahamas — A paramedic who treated John Travolta’s chronically ill son was ready to release private information to the media unless he was paid $25 million for a document he believed “detrimental” to the movie star, a lawyer testified Tuesday.

Allyson Maynard-Gibson, an attorney for Travolta who is also the opposition leader in the archipelago’s Senate, said ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne’s lawyer told her days after the autistic boy’s death in January that the paramedic wanted to give the actor “first option” to buy the document.

Maynard-Gibson told the jury that the lawyer, former Bahamas Sen. Pleasant Bridgewater, who is also facing extortion charges along with Lightbourne, told her during a Jan. 15 meeting that the paramedic had been talking to international media companies and that the document “could belong to Travolta or it could belong to the world.”

Lightbourne “had been in contact with a lady from the U.S. media who said it might be beneficial to him if he could show that Travolta was negligent,” Maynard-Gibson testified, without disclosing the person’s identity.

The document, which Travolta signed, would have cleared the ambulance driver of liability if the family refused to send 16-year-old Jett Travolta to the hospital. The actor testified last week that he initially wanted his son flown to Florida for treatment after a seizure on Jan. 2 that resulted in Jett’s death.

But Jett was treated in the Bahamas, and it is unclear why the defendants allegedly believed Travolta would pay to keep the document private.

Maynard-Gibson, who is also a former attorney general in the Bahamas, said Bridgewater told her she had warned Lightbourne that “what he was doing was wrong and that it would detrimental to the country.”

The trial began Sept. 21 and is expected to last several weeks. Travolta is expected to give further testimony later in the trial.