Travolta: Bahamas Medic Threatened Me

John Travolta has told a court in the Bahamas that a local paramedic threatened to sell stories to the news media suggesting the movie star was at fault in the death of his 16-year-old son.

Travolta testified that the paramedic who is now on trial for extortion demanded $25 million from the actor.

He was testifying in the second week of the trial of paramedic Tarino Lightbourne and attorney Pleasant Bridgewater.

Travolta told the court that Lightbourne had a consent document that the actor signed when medics came to the aid of his son. He says the medic threatened to use the document to "imply that the death of my son was intentional and I was culpable in some way."

Lightbourne and Bridgewater have pleaded innocent.

On Tuesday, Travolta's lawyer testified that the paramedic who treated the actor's chronically ill son was ready to release private information to the media unless he was paid $25 million for a document he believed "detrimental" to the movie star.

Allyson Maynard-Gibson, an attorney for Travolta who is also the opposition leader in the archipelago's Senate, said Lightbourne's lawyer told her days after the autistic boy's death in January that the paramedic wanted to give the actor "first option" to buy the document.

Maynard-Gibson told the jury that the lawyer, former Bahamas Sen. Pleasant Bridgewater, who is also facing extortion charges along with Lightbourne, told her during a Jan. 15 meeting that the paramedic had been talking to international media companies and that the document "could belong to Travolta or it could belong to the world."

Lightbourne "had been in contact with a lady from the U.S. media who said it might be beneficial to him if he could show that Travolta was negligent," Maynard-Gibson testified, without disclosing the person's identity.

The document, which Travolta signed, would have cleared the ambulance driver of liability if the family refused to send 16-year-old Jett Travolta to the hospital. The actor testified last week that he initially wanted his son flown to Florida for treatment after a seizure on Jan. 2 that resulted in Jett's death.

But Jett was treated in the Bahamas, and it is unclear why the defendants allegedly believed Travolta would pay to keep the document private.

Maynard-Gibson, who is also a former attorney general in the Bahamas, said Bridgewater told her she had warned Lightbourne that "what he was doing was wrong and that it would be detrimental to the country."

The trial began Sept. 21 and is expected to last several weeks. Travolta is expected to give further testimony later in the trial.