NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Police have launched an investigation into Superintendent Debra Thompson, the lead investigator in the bribery trial of former Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Cabinet Minister Shane Gibson.
Gibson’s lawyer, Owen Wells, confirmed to Eyewitness News that he and his client met with Police Commissioner Paul Rolle and Assistant Commissioner Craig Stubbs on Friday.
Wells said they were advised that the investigation into Thompson would now begin.
Gibson was acquitted in November 2019 of 15 counts of bribery.
He has sued the government, alleging malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.
The former minister wrote repeatedly to Rolle for a response to his complaint against Thompson concerning her conduct in the case.
During Gibson’s trial, then assistant superintendent said she realized it was wrong to take statements from the prosecution’s key witness, contractor Jonathan Ash, and Gibson’s former associate, Deborah Bastian, in each other’s presence to “iron out” differences in their statements.
In April 2020, Thompson, of the Financial Crime Investigation Unit, was promoted along with 44 other assistant superintendents to superintendent.
Thompson testified that she met with Ash and Bastian on September 25, 2017, to clear up the difference in their accounts of what transpired during a meeting with Gibson in January 2017 about the more than $1 million the government owed Ash for work associated with the cleanup effort post-Hurricane Matthew.
Gibson had ministerial responsibility for the relief and cleanup efforts at the time.
Thompson also admitted in court to composing three statements on Ash’s behalf in his absence following their initial meeting on June 27, 2017.
Gibson previously wrote official complaints to then Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis, the Bahamas Bar Association and the Police Service Commission on February 7, 2020, and against Thompson and then Commissioner of Police Anthony Ferguson, Director of Public Prosecution Garvin Gaskin, as well as Ash’s attorney, Alicia Bowe.
The complaints against Thompson and Ferguson were similar.
