John Travolta: Paramedic Intended to Blame Me for Jett's Death
John Travolta
John Travolta said a Bahamas paramedic threatened to sell stories that hinted Travolta was to blame for his 16-year-old son's death, the Associated Press reports.
In a Bahamas courtroom, Travolta testified Wendesday paramedic Tarino Lightbourne demanded $25 million in exchange for his silence. Lightbourne is on trial for extortion, along with a former Bahamas senator, Pleasant Bridgewater.
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"They were stories that would imply that the death of my son was intentional and I was culpable in some way," Travolta said.
The actor, 55, said he was told that if he did not pay Lightbourne and Bridgewater, they planned to make public a consent document Travolta signed. It indicated his son, Jett, should not be sent to a local hospital, and it released Lightbourne of liability.
Jett, the only son of Travolta and Kelly Preston, died Jan. 2 after suffering a seizure at the family's Bahamas vacation home. Travolta testified last week that he originally signed the consent document because he wanted Jett to be treated in Florida. However, Jett was sent to a local hospital for treatment before he was pronounced dead later that day.
Jett was autistic and suffered seizures every 5-to-10 days, a fact Travolta publicly acknowledged for the first time last week during the trial.
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A local lawyer for Travolta, Allyson Maynard-Gibson, also testified that Bridgewater told her in January that Lightbourne was in discussions with an unidentified American news outlet as well as several other news outlets about the document and the story.
