PROSECUTION and defence lawyers painted competing portraits of Shane Gibson yesterday, asking jurors during closing arguments to view the former minister as either a corrupt politician or a victim of nefarious plot. A verdict could come today as Supreme Court Justice Carolita Bethel is expected to sum up the case, direct the jury and ask them to decide whether Gibson committed a crime by soliciting and accepting more than $200,000 in bribes from Jonathan Ash as a condition for expediting payments he was owed by the Christie administration. Mr Gibson’s lawyer, Keith Knight, QC, argued the case was borne out of a conspiracy, the product of an “evil plot.” He honed in on Assistant Superintendent of Police Debra Thompson’s admission that she was wrong to meet with Mr Ash and Deborah Bastian, a key player in the affair, to coordinate their stories before the trial and “synchronise their statements” in contravention of Royal Bahamas Police Force rules.

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