The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

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.

He called that meeting an “act of perversion, an act of wickedness” that was committed with the knowledge of some of the top law enforcement officials in the country.

“If they do it to him, can you imagine what they do to a ghetto youth?” he said, noting ASP Thompson said such practice isn’t uncommon. “How many people at Fox Hill has it been done to?” he said. “Their aim was to wash away (Gibson’s) rights but I ask you to restore those rights. Send that message that those rights are sacrosanct and must not be washed away.”

It is alleged that Mr Gibson acted in concert with Ms Bastian for some of the bribes and that she procured money from Mr Ash on his behalf.

Mr Knight repeatedly highlighted Ms Bastian’s absence from the trial.

“Where’s Deborah Bastian?” he asked. “Why didn’t she come here and said ‘yes, I got $50,000?’ And if she got it why isn’t she sitting in the dock with Shane Gibson? So ask yourself, what’s going on?”

Mr Knight said to his count, 136 times Mr Ash said under cross-examination that he couldn’t recall certain things, but, when asked questions by the prosecution about checks allegedly paid to Mr Gibson, could remember specifics.

“What a wonderful thing,” he said. “So many discrepancies (in his testimony). Whenever there is a record, there is a contradiction.”

However, prosecution attorney James Guthrie, QC, told jurors that on every major issue Mr Ash’s testimony remained consistent despite six days of cross-examination.

“He left (the witness box) without any damage to his account of what happened between January and March 2017,” he said, recalling Mr Ash’s own words: “The major stuff I could never forget, the shaking down I could never forget.”

Mr Guthrie dismissed the defence’s emphasis on the prosecution’s coordination meeting as a distraction, saying that for all their emphasis on synchronisation, they couldn’t highlight any major discrepancies despite having all the statements Mr Ash has ever made in the case.

“You’ve seen ASP Thompson,” he said. “She accepts it was wrong to see (Mr Ash and Ms Bastian) together. But she says she was trying to find the truth and there was nothing sinister about that.”

As for Ms Bastian’s absence from the trial, Mr Guthrie told jurors it was not their place to speculate about the reasons and he noted the defence could have called her as a witness but chose not to do so.

Mr Guthrie honed in on a WhatsApp message Mr Gibson sent Mr Ash concerning shingles, which Mr Ash testified meant money. Mr Gibson’s lawyers have insisted the Golden Gates MP meant the material used on roofs.

“He was a minister,” Mr Guthrie said, pointing to a photo the defence entered into the court’s exhibit that was supposedly an example of what Gibson requested. “Are we supposed to believe that when he said (shingles) he wanted a pile of rubbish? Gibson was asking for money and dirty money he had no right to. It is nonsense to pretend as the defence does that in the WhatsApp conversation shingles meant anything other than that.”

Mr Guthrie asked jurors to review the transcript of Mr Gibson’s interview with police and draw inferences from his attempts to distance himself from Mr Ash despite trial evidence showing the two were familiar with each other.

“He was corrupt,” he said. “He saw an opportunity to take advantage and that is what he did.”