E! Online has reported earlier this month that a paramedic in the Bahamas was charged on Monday with trying to extort $25 million from John Travolta after his chronically ill son, Jett, died of a seizure at the family's vacation home.
According to the Associated Press, the 47-year-old paramedic Tarino Lighbourne, pleaded not guilty to the charges, which have also led to the resignation of Bahamain Senator Allyson Maynard-Gibson who was representing Lighbtourne in his contacts with the Travolta family.
Few details have been released about the case except for the fact that certain documents which Lightbourne possesses allegedly could have caused embarrassment to the Travolta family. Earlier reports indicated that besides those documents, there were photographs involved as well but police official Marvin Dame denied that. Actually the details about the alleged plot have not been disclosed and Lightbourne was remanded to jail after prosecutor Bernard Turner objected to bail.
Tarino Lighbourne is the medic who attended the call regarding Jett Travolta on the 2nd of January. Lightbourne described for several tabloids his efforts to revive the 16-year-old son of John Travoltaafter he collapsed on Grand Bahama. Unfortunately, it was too late for the young boy, whose tragic death has been mourned by his parents since.
Another person who got arrested on Thursday regarding this case was Senator Pleasant Bridgewater. She was charged with abetment to extort and conspiracy to extort, but she was released after paying a $40,000 bail. As determined as she was to prove her innocence, Bridgewater resigned on Saturday from her seat in the legislature. But apparently, the list of arrests does not stop here. Parliamentarian Obie Wilchcombe, was detained as well, questioned and released on Friday, pending further investigation. Unlike the first two, he has not been charged. The man considers himself a friend of the “Grease” lead actor, for he was with Travolta shortly after his son’s tragic death. He also accused Senator Pleasant Breidgewater to have told him that someone was doing something untoward after the teenager had passed away.
Jett’s devastated parents, Kelly Preston and John Travolta, have said that when he was 2 years old, their son was diagnosed with Kawasaki Syndrome, an illness that leads to inflamed blood vessels in young children and may also cause a heart attack, said Dr. Thomas Lehman, an expert on the malady at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. The medicine Jett was on, Depokate, originally reduced his seizures to about once every three weeks but after a few years it started to lose its effectiveness and began to damage the boy’s liver. So his parents, after consulting doctors, stopped giving it to him.
Jett was the oldest child of Travolta, 54, and Preston, 46, who were married in 1991. They also have an 8-year-old daughter, Ella Bleu. In a statement posted on his website, the actor thanked everyone for their support: "Jett was the most wonderful son that two parents could ever ask for and lit up the lives of everyone he encountered. We are heartbroken that our time with him was so brief."
