A police detective who was the final witness for the prosecution in the attempted extortion trial of former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater and ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne testified yesterday that Bridgewater told her that she burned and discarded the remains of a document at the heart of the extortion case, after she realized that the "situation was about to explode."

Bridgewater and Lightbourne are accused of attempting to extort $25 million from American actor John Travolta following the death of his 16-year-old son Jett on Grand Bahama on January 2.

According to evidence given during the course of the trial, Lightbourne threatened to leak to the international press a refusal to transfer form from the Rand Memorial Hospital if the actor did not pay him.

Detective Deborah Thompson testified yesterday that on January 22, police ? who already had Bridgewater in custody ? showed her a warrant to search her law offices, Bridgewater and Co., in an effort to locate a copy of the refusal to transfer form.

Thompson testified that as the search was being conducted, Bridgewater told police that the document "was not there."

When police asked Bridgewater what she meant, she reportedly told police that after she noticed that the situation was about to explode, she destroyed the document with a candle and flushed it down the toilet.

Thompson said police then took Bridgewater to her home where she identified a white candle that she reportedly used to burn the document.

Thompson testified that police seized that candle.

She also testified that Travolta did not give a full statement to police until more than a month (February 25) after Bridgewater and Lightbourne were arrested in relation to the alleged extortion attempt.

However, Thompson said Travolta did make a criminal complaint in the form of an affidavit that was faxed to police on January 19.

Under cross-examination yesterday, Bridgewater's attorney Murrio Ducille asked Thompson if police normally accepted affidavits or statements in that manner.

She said it did fall under police procedures but she was unable to cite the particular regulation.

Thompson added that in her 15 years as an officer it was standard procedure to accept written criminal complaints if the logistics prevented the person from coming to the police, or the police going to them.

Ducille asserted that the police could not actually verify that the fax came from Travolta himself.

He also questioned why the police investigation continued after Bridgewater and Lightbourne were arrested.

Thompson said it was normal that "additional inquiries" be made into a matter after an arrest.

The Nassau Guardian understands that police wanted to call Assistant Superintendent of Police Ricardo Taylor, who headed the investigation into the matter. But he suffered a stroke on May 26, and is still in recovery, according to Thompson.

Yesterday morning, jurors in the trial raised the issue of tape recordings made from a body wire that Travolta's lawyer, Michael McDermott, was wearing when he met with Bridgewater on January 19, and Lightbourne on January 20, at the Sheraton Resort on Cable Beach.

On Wednesday, Lightbourne's lawyer, Carlson Shurland, suggested that between the time McDermott opened his room door for Lightbourne and the time that a video camera in the room started recording, the ambulance driver had asked if he was being recorded and McDermott said he was not.

During his testimony on Wednesday, McDermott insisted that exchange never happened.

The jury asked Detective Sean Saunders if he had the recordings from the body wire.

When he indicated why the recordings were not played during the course of the trial, he said that the microphone on the body wire was so sensitive that it picked up all the ambient sound in the lobby.

The tapes were played for the jury, however almost none of the dialogue could be clearly heard.

The prosecution rested its case yesterday. The trial resumes on Tuesday

By JUAN MCCARTNEY , Nassau Guardian