Travolta Extortion
On January 23rd 2009, Authorities in the Bahamas detained three people, including a Bahamas senator, on Friday in connection with an alleged $20 million extortion plot against John Travolta, local officials have said.
The FBI is now helping with evidence analysis in the alleged extortion plot involving John Travolta and Kelly Preston, with special voice-analysis experts assisting Bahamas police with the case.
Law-enforcement sources said that the specialists were needed because the police inquiry is now centering on “sensitive” phone conversations that allegedly took place between Travolta lawyers and Sen. Pleasant Bridgewater, who quit her parliament post Saturday after being charged last week with abetment and conspiracy to extort.
The conversations concerned documents obtained by ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne, the paramedic who claimed he was present when 16-year-old Jett Travolta died Jan. 2. Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police Marvin Dame said the documents are currently in police possession.
Lightbourne plead “not guilty” yesterday to attempted extortion and conspiracy, believed that the mystery documents could have caused embarrassment to the Travoltas and might have left them vulnerable to criticism and questioning over how they handled the seizure that resulted in Jett’s death.
Dame also said that rumors about damaging photos being at the center of the extortion plot are “incorrect.”
“We are talking specifically about a document that the alleged accused purported to have in his possession and was using that document to extort a substantial sum of moneys from the victim, Mr. Travolta,” said the top cop. “This matter is still under investigation so I don’t intend to get into specifics of the case.”
Britain's Daily Mail reports that once the alleged extortionists made their demands clear, Travolta contacted his lawyers, who then flew to the Bahamas to meet with the culprits. TMZ reports that the monetary amount being asked was $20 million. They also claim that the extortion plot is not over a photo, but the "circumstances surrounding Jett's death."
Travolta and Preston had revealed that their son became sick when he was 2, and was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease, an illness that leads to inflammation of the blood vessels in young children. Both parents blamed his diagnosis on household cleaners, and used Scientology's detoxification program to improve their son's health. "I was obsessive about his space being cleaned. We constantly had the carpets cleaned," Travolta said in a 2001 interview.
Preston and Travolta also have a daughter named Ella.