Paramedic 'threatened Travolta over son's death'
- 00:00:58
- ITN
Paramedic 'threatened Travolta over son's death'
John Travolta has claimed in court that a blackmailing paramedic threatened to sell stories suggesting the actor was at fault over his son's death. The Grease star told a jury in the Bahamas that Tarino Lightbourne demanded $25 million (£15.6 million) and indicated that he would use a form against him in which Travolta stated he didn't want 16-year-old Jett sent to a local hospital. The 55-year-old actor added that if he didn't pay up the defendant intended to suggest that the death was intentional and that Travolta was culpable. Jett died at the family's holiday home on Grand Bahama on January 2 following a seizure. Testifying in the second week of the trial, Travolta said the paramedic threatened to concoct a story and go to the press. "They were stories that would imply that the death of my son was intentional and I was culpable in some way," he told the court in Nassau. Last week the actor explained to jurors that he initially signed a document refusing to have his son sent to a local hospital because he wanted him flown to Florida for treatment. Both Lightbourne and another defendant, Pleasant Bridgewater, have pleaded not guilty to attempted extortion and conspiracy to extort.
ITN | September 30, 2009
