September 7, 2010 - A judge in the Bahamas dismissed charges Monday against two people who were accused of trying to extort money from actor John Travolta.
Travolta decided not to pursue trial because he no longer wanted to face the pain of a new trial stemming from the death of his teenage son in the Bahamas.
A retrial was about to begin for the two defendants when Prosecutor Neil Braithwaite submitted a motion to drop the case.
"The Travolta family has said that this matter has caused them unbelievable stress and pain and they wish to put this whole thing behind them," Braithwaite told the court after a jury had been picked to hear the case.
Travolta’s 16-year-old son, Jett, died January 2009 at the family vacation home in Grand Bahama. Ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne and his attorney, politician Pleasant Bridgewater, were accused of threatening to release private information about Jett’s death. Jett was autistic.
Lightbourne was among the medics who treated Jett and allegedly sought $25 million from the actor with Bridgewater’s assistance. Bridgewater resigned from her seat in the Bahamas Senate after she was charged in the case.
The Associated Press reported that a judge declared a mistrial in October after a Bahamian lawmaker suggested the still-deliberating jury had acquitted one of the suspects.
Travolta had testified during that trial. He described how he desperately tried to save his seizure-prone son’s life. His attorney said in October he was prepared to return to the stand if necessary.
Travolta said Monday that the passage of time has changed his mind.
"The long-pending status of this matter continued to take a heavy emotional toll on my family, causing us to conclude that it was finally time to put this matter behind us," the actor said in a written statement.
"Therefore, after much reflection I concluded that it was in my family's best interest for me not to voluntarily return to The Bahamas to testify a second time at trial."
Travolta thanked Bahamian authorities for their work on the case and said his cooperation had come at "great emotional cost to my family."
Bridgewater was relieved and said, “I’m just happy to be free and put this all behind me.”
She called the case against her the “greatest nightmare” of her life.
She said she was saddened by the Travolta family’s loss and hoped they could “bring closure to this sad chapter in their lives and open a brand new one, filled with joy and peace.”
Lightbourne said he wanted a trial to prove his innocence. “I’m not totally satisfied,” he told the AP. “I wanted to have my name cleared.”
Jett Travolta suffered a seizure and collapsed at the family’s vacation home. Travolta testified he performed CPR on Jett after a nanny alerted him and his wife, actress Kelly Preston.
Travolta told the court his 16-year-old son was autistic for the first time publicly – something the public had long suspected.
The developmental disorder is frequently accompanied by seizures.
The AP reported that Travolta testified that Lightbourne, one of the paramedics who responded to the home on Grand Bahama Island, threatened to sell stories to the news media suggesting the movie star was at fault in Jett's death.
Initially Travolta wanted his son flown to a Florida hospital when, after 30 minutes, an ambulance had still not arrived.
As a result, he signed a consent document refusing to have his son taken to a local hospital, which cleared Lightbourne of any liability.
In the end Jett was taken to a Bahamian hospital.
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Source:
The Associated Press
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