By LEDEDRA MARCHE

Senior FN Reporter

lededra@nasguard.com

Should the attempted extortion trial of Attorney Pleasant Bridgewater and Tarino Lightbourne be reheard in a New Providence Supreme Court, lawyers for Lightbourne want Senior Justice Anita Allen to recuse herself from the retrial.

"In fact we would insist that she recuses herself from this trial," Attorney Carlson Shurland told The Freeport News yesterday.

"The right and proper thing to do is for her not to even entertain the idea of being a justice in the retrial having regards to all of the contemptuous issues that manifested itself in this trial between herself and defence attorneys."

Lightbourne, 47, and At-torney Pleasant Bridgewater, 48, were on trial in New Providence for allegedly attempting to extort $25 million from actor John Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston following the death of their 16-year-old son Jett at their Grand Bahama vacation home on January 2.

Lightbourne is a former ambulance driver at the Rand Memorial Hospital and Bridgewater is alleged to have been acting on his behalf in an attempted plot to extort millions of dollars from the Hollywood family.

Lightbourne was charged with attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion on January 2 and January 20, 2009 and Bridgewater was charged with abetment to extort and conspiracy to extort on the same dates.

Lightbourne was represented by Attorneys Shurland and Mary Bain while Bridge-water was represented by Attorney Murio Ducille.

Senior Justice Allen pre-sided over the five-week long court matter which ended in her declaring a mistrial after South Andros MP Picewell Forbes announced on national TV and radio Wednesday night that former PLP Senator Bridgewater had been acquitted of the attempted extortion charges while the jury was still deliberating.

The nine-member jury was discharged and lawyers for both the defence and Travolta opined that the decision was a just one.

However, Attorney Shur-land told The Freeport News on Sunday that if the matter is retried in New Providence he would not want it to be before Justice Allen.

"As long as I am an attorney in this country I will never appear before Justice Anita Allen again in another trial," he added.

He also noted that from the beginning of the trial his client was up against money, power and privilege as he was a defendant who was unable to properly finance his defence.

"We had factors that created a financial hardship for the lawyer, albeit he was given a Crown brief – which was really a token assistance – there were witnesses we wanted to bring but we were unable to afford them," he said.

Attorney Shurland added that the "famous witnesses" who were brought in were accommodated by the system more so than the Bahamians who should be given the privilege.

The cost to the defendant to travel to Nassau and maintain himself during the course of the trial as well as bring witnesses in is on Lightbourne, Shurland pointed out.

"And if he wishes to continue to have a lawyer like myself, obviously it's going to cost him a lot of money," he acknowledged.

Shurland noted that during the period of the trial, Light-bourne is responsible for room and board and all expenses associated with being in Nassau, along with travel expenses for any witnesses.

The prosecution has the assistance of the government or their department to bring in witnesses as they see fit," he added.

"Look at the economy, the complainant is a man of substantial means and they are able to afford it, even of they can't come to where the trial is being held, the government is obligated to pay for them."

Shurland said having the trial transferred to Grand Bahama makes sense simply because the defendant lives in Freeport along with the ma-jority of the witnesses.

Looking back at the trial, the defence attorney said it failed to highlight any of the extortion allegations or the way the police and Hospital Authority handled Jett Tra-volta's death.

Shurland said mounting their defence proved a challenge as the doctor who was first on the scene was conveniently out of the jurisdiction and, among other things, they were never given the autopsy report.

He said the issue of whether there was some threat to slander Travolta's name does not arise simply because there is no way for the prosecution to dispute what is being said unless the autopsy report and coroner's report is produced.

Days before the start of the September trial, Lightbourne's defence team had filed a constitutional motion for the court to compel the prosecution to release material documents to them.

The defence charged that they were witnessing an "unprecedented resistance" from the prosecution having made the request on April 16.

Shurland pointed out that during the course of the trial, they also complained that they were unable to get a lot of the witnesses either because they were unable or lacked the resources to travel and find them.

"We weren't getting any help from the AG's office, so it wasn't a level playing field," he noted.

Up to late last week it was still unclear as to when the new trial would begin.

In the interim, South Andros MP Forbes may face contempt of court charges as he is scheduled to reappear before Senior Justice Allen on Thursday to show cause why he should not be held in contempt of court after last Wednesday's national TV and radio announcement.

His remarks came at the Progressive Liberal Party's 51st National Conven-tion.

Forbes was summoned before the judge the day after the declaration and while Justice Allen said that there was no evidence that there was any communication between Forbes or anyone who may have given him information in relation to the jury, she noted that there could be the appearance that information was leaked from the jury room.

Forbes was represented by attorneys Anthony McKinney, Wayne Munroe and Alfred Sears, MP for Fort Charlotte.

After asking Justice Allen to outline the precise charge that Forbes was called to answer and requesting more time to prepare arguments as to why Forbes should not be held in contempt , Justice Allen ordered that Forbes reappear in court Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m.