John Travolta will never see justice in the trial of two Bahamians who attempted to extort $25 million from him and threatened to blame the actor for the Jan. 2 death of his son Jett.
That’s the opinion of experts on Caribbean law, who say even well-intentioned jurors in the island nation are more likely to protect their own than side with outsiders.
Bahamian Senior Supreme Court Judge Anita Allen declared a mistrial on Oct. 21 in the extortion case against former senator Pleasant Bridgewater and ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne after local politician Picewell Forbes publicly announced that Bridgewater had been acquitted – while the jury was still deliberating. Allen said she believed there could have been a leak from the jury room.
Bridgewater and Lightbourne were accused of demanding $25 million from Travolta in exchange for not releasing a document the actor signed the day Jett died, declining to have the teen taken to a local hospital.
Travolta testified he wanted to fly Jett to a U.S. hospital, but changed his mind. Jett was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead from a seizure.
Plans call for a new trial, but “chances are, they will get off anyway,” says Larry Johnson, former deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism and co-owner of BERG Associates, a private security firm with extensive Caribbean experience.
“The Bahamas are small islands,” explained Johnson. “Everybody knows everybody, and Travolta is an outsider. He won’t get justice down there.”
Travolta’s attorney, Michael Ossi, is pressing for a change of venue to Florida, but experts believe the request will be denied.
“The defendants will say, ‘If you’re going to charge us here, try us here,’” said crime analyst and former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt. “And Travolta would need a whole lot of proof to overcome the cultural bias of the jury.”
