Actor John Travolta (2nd L) with his 16-year-old son Jett (2nd R) on Sunday, saying he and his wife, actress Kelly Preston (R), Daughter Ella is pictured at left.

According to prosecutors on September 22 a paramedic who had treated John Travolta’s son in the Bahamas before he died, tried to blackmail his star by threatening to release private information unless a star paid $25 million.  Travolta did not appear in the court room on the first day of testimony in the island chain off the Florida coast but is expected to take the stand during the trial at some point.

“Contact was made with certain persons to communicate a threat to John Travolta,” Bernard Turner, chief prosecutor in the Bahamas, said in his opening argument.

Ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne and former Bahamas senator Pleasant Bridgewater, a co-defendant who allegedly acted as an intermediary, have pleaded innocent to extortion charges.  Defense lawyers had not yet presented opening arguments.

Police say the alleged scheme involved a document related to the treatment of Jett Travolta, a chronically ill teenager who died Jan. 2 following a seizure at a family vacation home on Grand Bahamas Island. It would have released emergency responders from liability if the family refused an ambulance but police said that did not happen.

The first trial witness, police inspector Andrew Wells, testified that after 16-year-old Jett was loaded into an ambulance, Lightbourne told him that Travolta wanted his son taken directly to the local airport instead of the hospital. Wells said Travolta signed a release form.

It was unclear why Jett Travolta was not taken to the airport and why the defendants allegedly believed the actor would pay to keep the document secret.  Another paramedic, Derrex Rolle, testified September 22 that Jett was unresponsive and showed no signs of life when he arrived at the actor’s home inside a resort community.

Travolta, who has kept a low profile since his son’s death, is on a list of 14 witnesses who could be called to testify. Prosecutors have not said when the actor might take the stand. The other potential witnesses include lawyers and friends of Travolta as well as five police inspectors and detectives.  A jury of six women and three men was seated in the Supreme Court case.

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According to Fox News, conflicting reports have emerged over the timeline of events leading up to the death of Travolta’s 16-year-old son Jett.  Police forces in the Bahamas say that Jett was left unattended for more than 10 hours — a claim which the Travolta camp is vehemently denying — according to TMZ.com.

Jett, who suffered from seizures due to Kawasaki Syndrome, reportedly fell in his hotel bathroom and hit his head sometime between Jan. 1 and 2 while on vacation with his family.  Though the cause of death has yet to be determined, it is widely suspected that the head trauma suffered in the fall killed him.

Jett, his family, and two nannies took a boating trip before returning to the hotel around 6 p.m. on Jan. 1. After the outing, Jett reportedly went to his bedroom to sleep. Police said that he was last seen at around 11:30 p.m. on the night of Jan. 1.  His body was later discovered by the caretaker, Jeff Michael Kathrein, at 10 a.m. on Jan. 2.

According to Michael McDermott, John Travolta’s lawyer and close friend, Jett often slept for 12 — sometimes 16 — hours a day. McDermott said Jett’s absence from the family’s activity was therefore not unusual, TMZ reported.  McDermott also said that a nanny or caretaker may have entered the bathroom during the middle of the night, possibly making the time frame even smaller.

The Travolta camp has claimed that few minutes passed between the time Jett hit his head and the time of his death, according to TMZ. McDermott also said that there were attempts to revive Jett at the scene.

“With lots of emotion that goes through a family in a time like this, it’s understandable to come to your own ideas or terms, but we have an obligation to assure and convey with our public that the information we give is solid. The investigation is ongoing, but we stand by what we have said,” police in the Bahamas told TMZ on Sunday.

There have also been several reports that suggest Travolta, a scientologist, refused to give his son anti-seizure medication.  But Travolta reportedly gave his son Depakote — an anti-seizure medication — for years, TMZ reported. The family eventually stopped administering the drug after it lost its effectiveness, because it caused Jett “serious physical damage,” McDermott told TMZ.

The grand mal seizures from which Jett suffered were as frequent as once every four days and were considered “extremely serious.”

Travolta, 54, and his wife, actress Kelly Preston, 46, also have an 8-year-old daughter, Ella Bleu. The family had arrived in the Bahamas on a private plane and was vacationing at their home in the Old Bahama Bay resort community.

Travolta, who gained fame as Vinnie Barbarino on the 1970s television show “Welcome Back, Kotter” and the 1977 film “Saturday Night Fever,” went on to become one of Hollywood’s biggest names. He married Preston in 1991.  A television actress, Preston appeared with Travolta in the 2000 film “Battlefield Earth,” based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

In a statement posted on Preston’s Web site, the family thanked fans and friends for sending their love and condolences.  Calling Jett “the most wonderful son that two parents could ever ask for,” Preston and Travolta said they were “heartbroken that our time with him was so brief. We will cherish the time we had with him for the rest of our lives.”

We’ve learned John Travolta will be the first witness called in the extortion trial over his son’s death — and after John steps down from the stand, there will be a legal dogfight in the courtroom over what could be the smoking gun in the case.

Sources say Travolta will testify for less than two hours. When he finishes, we’re told defense lawyers will mount an objection to the introduction of a secret videotape which allegedly shows the attempted extortion played out.  The video was shot by authorities in the Bahamas. It shows Travolta’s lawyers’ listening attentively as the alleged $25 million extortion demand was laid out on the table.

According to prosecutors, an essentially irrelevant document connected to Jett’s death is at the center of the supposed that the extortion demand by former state Senator Pleasant Bridgewater and paramedic Tarino Lightbourne who threatened to release that document if Travolta did not pay $25 million.

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My Take: I feel sorry for John Travolta and the loss of his son.  Of course, like many fans, I can only go by what I have read in the newspapers and heard on TV about his relationship with his son.  There have been some candid shots that seemed to show how much he loved his son.  I cannot imagine him being involved in any way in his son’s death.

As for the document that he signed to get his son’s body back to the United States, I really do not see a problem with that.  The only problem that I could see is that his son’s death was ruled anything but an accident.  I think he just wanted to get his son home so that he can bury him.  And the people who tried to use that situation to get money were stupid.

The fact that John Travolta turned them in to be prosecuted tells me that he has nothing to hide about his son’s death.  I cannot imagine what it would take for a man to testify in a trial after his son died.  Yet, Travolta is doing just that.  He said should be proud of him!

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