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Okay, I want to take a moment to thank you all for sticking with us through this labyrinth of a story, through eleven episodes that hopefully took you places you didn't expect to go. I know. That's how I feel. And while belize's troubles, and Jasmine's for that matter, are far from over, this is our final episode. For now, I and we'll be getting into what passes for a verdict and the tragic shooting that started it all soon enough. But first, I want to tell you about an alleged incident that really puts any legal proceedings into context. This would have been sometime in the late spring of last year, 2023, when Jasmine heard from an old acquaintance, Alan Hernandez. Hernandez, who also goes by the name terrace, had worked briefly as a security guard for jasmine until she had to let him go. But there were no hard feelings, and time to time, she'd run into Alan or hear from him. And on this day, he had quite a story to share. Another former employee of Jasmine's had written to him via Facebook.

Diane Davidson wrote and told him that Andrew wanted to speak to him.

Diane had known Jasmine back in Canada before coming to work for her and Andrew after the twins were born. But in the aftermath of the shooting, she stayed with Andrew and the kids and came to consider herself a sort of grandma to the twins. Nothing necessarily untoward there. She simply hitched her wagon to the more stable gravy train. But Diane also testified against Jasmine in custody court, questioning her fitness as a mother. And in this particular instance, according to Allen Hernandez, Davidson was allegedly acting as a kind of emissary for Andrew Ashcroft, asking Alan for quite a favor.

Andrew would offer him any amount of money if he writes a statement saying that I am a drug user and I'm an alcoholic and saying that I confessed to Allen to killing Henry on purpose. And then she said, we want you to go to the Radisson, Fort George in Belize City.

If you need a reminder. That's Michael Ashcroft's hotel, just next door to his villa. Waterloo Investment holdings technically owns it now.

And all of a sudden, Alan gets another message, this time from a fake Facebook account called Blanca Ashcroft.

This I can verify. I've seen screenshots of these messages. The photo is of a smiling woman in sunglasses who Jasmine didn't recognize.

And she goes, we know everything about you, Alan, and we know that you owe the courts.

Jasmine believed that maybe he owed child support money. I've also heard from local reporters that he has a drug problem and is often in trouble with the law. So, full disclosure, not the most reliable witness.

And, you know Jasmine's not going to help you, but Andrew wants to help you, and all he wants is some kind of flash drive that your family says you have. Like, what is this, a James Bond movie? Like, what's going on? Like, the evil villains looking for some flash drive.

Probably the same flash drive loaded with incriminating material. A belizean reporter told me he was also offered in exchange for money. Only when he met with Alan, there was no drive, just a shakedown for cash. That reporter told me he was scared by Alan's behavior and had to call the cops. He was embarrassed and felt sort of taken by it all. Anyway, Jasmine didn't just absorb this news about the nanny and blank Ashcroft badgering an addict for a flash drive that probably doesn't even exist.

I took those messages and I sent them to Andrew, and I said, listen, I was like, you need to stop this. You're now trying to obstruct justice and pay for false statements against me. I'm like, you need to cut this out. And then all of a sudden, these Blanca messages start coming to Allen again, saying, we don't even care if you show Jasmine these messages now. It gets really crazy, okay? Saturday night, Alan's at his mom's house, and the police come arrest him. They tell his mom, if you want your son out, call Andrew.

Jasmine knows all of this because she spoke to Allen about it and recorded it.

What happened? Are you okay?

I'm good, man. Love. They got me all over the frigging place, you know? You know, they even took me to bed. My pen.

What? For what? Why did they lock you up?

For some investigation, for some shooting. That was all bullshit. They just needed something to hold me under. Then when I came down.

Now I can confirm that Alan Hernandez was picked up by cops and taken to a police station. Last spring, a paralegal who works for one of Jasmine's belizean lawyers went to the station and spotted his name on a list of detainees. On May 7, according to Allen, a cop took him out of his holding cell into the front office. My boss wants to speak with you, he said, and passed Allen a cell phone.

I know his voice. That's Andrew. I won't lie to you, sis. That's fucking Andrew on that phone.

Wow. So who's the commissioner of police here? It looks like it's Andrew Ashcroft. Wow.

Anyways, he was like, um, I want to see you. I want to meet with you. He said that I could provide your passport, your visa. He said I could even give you 20 care if you just provide what I need. So right after that, I end the phone call. You know, I hang up on him.

This apparently didn't go over well.

I started making noise, you know, I started knocking on the bloody door and stuff. I got really pissed off. Jazz. I let the car part know that.

Allen says he told the officers that they needed to charge him or release him. Instead, he says they passed him the phone again.

He was like, Hernan, I'm willing to help you. I just want to ask you certain questions. I just want to meet you in person. Then, Hernandez, can't we do that? So I told him just like this. I said, you listen to me. I ain't gonna play with your ass. And he hung up. I caught Prasimil look at me. And he was like, you know, a real asshole. I said. I said, what? Fuck you. To call our asshole, man said, you have one of the biggest person.

We asked Andrew about this. His lawyer denies that Andrew himself had any dealings with Alan, but he did confirm that Alan and Diane were in contact. His version is that it was Allen who reached out to Diane, claiming to have information. This is, in the abstract, an objectively banana story that a billionaire Zion might encourage cops to detain a drug addict in order to help locate a flash drive filled with scandalous material that seems to have never existed. But here's the thing. It's not the only story like this we heard. I had been hearing rumors of other Belizeans who'd gotten calls from Andrew offering bribes or threats or both in exchange for damaging information to use against Jasmine in court. But none of them had been willing to come forward until this guy called Jasmine, having heard some of the podcast and wanting to share his account. I can't tell you his name, but he's fairly well known and respected. He got a call one day too, looking for a taped admission that he'd been sleeping with jasmine. Andrew was basically trying to bribe me. He didn't say any numbers, but he was literally trying to bribe me.

And he said, you know what I.

Could do for you and change your life.

And I'm like, I get what you're saying, but I don't know what you're talking about. Like, you literally have to switch it. She's literally a close friend of mine. And then he started threatening me, talking crazy. He could have people show up at my house and this and that. So I was very cautious, and I'm like, hell, nah, there's no money in the world. He could have me go against one of my friends. That's an evil thing that you're trying to do. Like, it's for family court, obviously. I'm like, literally, that's a mom, bro. There's no way you could have me do that to somebody with their kids.

Like, nope.

For Jasmine, this was increasingly just life in the buzzsaw. She was extremely jaded by even extraordinary events. At this point, none of it seemed to faze her much. Her lawyer, OJ Elrington, on the other hand, took it all more seriously.

Elrington actually said to me, they don't like issues like you, and they just want you to go away. It's just crazy.

According to Jasmine, Elrington's father, Hubert, also a lawyer, went so far as to urge her to leave Belize entirely.

He's, like, grabbing my arm and looking me dead in the eye, and he's.

Like, you need to get out of here.

And it's almost like he knows something more than he's telling me. Like, I just. It gave me the creeps.

From campsite media. This is white devil, and I'm Josh Dean. Episode twelve breakouthen Jasmine Harden, of course, couldn't leave Belize even if she wanted to. She had a trial ahead for the accidental shooting of Henry Jamaat, and only once that was adjudicated could she get her passport back and leave the country to see her twins, who she hadn't seen by this point in over a year. But as the criminal trial dates approached, she did have some reason to feel good about her lawyers for once, just when she was feeling most disillusioned with her legal options. After fumbling through several failed replacements for Dickie, she got an incredible gift. Really good lawyers Seth Weinstein and Brian Greenspan came to her from one of the top criminal defense firms in Canada, the kind of lawyers who argue huge cases, represent powerful clients and cost a small fortune. So how could Jasmine afford them?

I call them my angels.

It's a recurring theme in this story, good samaritans sweeping in seemingly out of the blue to help. In this case, some friends from Jasmine's distant past who she hadn't spoken to in many years. They've been watching the various events around her cases from afar and decided finally that they couldn't sit back and do nothing.

Yeah, they stepped up and they said, listen, Jasmine, this is your life, and you need a fair shot here. You haven't gotten one, and you're not going to get one. You need a lawyer from outside of Belize. Now it's time to bring in, you know, the big boys, the heavy hitters. I finally have a lawyer that can't be bought. They're gonna work just for me. I'm so excited.

And it seemed to Seth Weinstein like a pretty straightforward case.

It was an accident. And ultimately, I mean, that's the one thing we do know, that the belizean prosecutor accepted it was an accidental shooting. So if this was a canadian case, you know, we don't imprison people for accidents. I mean, we do have negligence based offenses, but they're high. They're high bars to meet. And I didn't think, you know, based on what I was hearing, it met that threshold.

And yet two years and countless adjournments later here, Jasmine was still navigating Belize's choppy legal waters, facing any number of outcomes.

What struck me was, was just everything that I was reading and everything I was hearing suggested that she was being treated just grossly, unfairly. And I was hearing stories about lawyers who were representing her and then abandoning her, lawyers who were potentially being bribed. I mean, you were hearing all these nightmare stories. And I said to myself, what the hell is going on there?

Weinstein could advise, but to actually help defend Jasmine, what he needed to do was get himself called to the bar in Belize, a seemingly simple process that was. I think you can guess what I'm about to say by this point, not simple at all. Starting in early 2023, Seth made three trips to Belize from Toronto and jumped through any number of hoops, but never managed to get called to the bar.

I met with a couple different lawyers, and I completed all the documentation, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, it never happened. We're speculating as to what those causes might be, but something that was described as was relatively straightforward and simple didn't happen.

He could be in court and advise, but a belizean lawyer would have to do the arguing. Specifically, it would fall to the father son duo of Hubert and OJ Elrington, who were there on April 25, 2023, when Jasmine Hartin appeared in court to officially hear a plea offer to talk to the prosecution and the judge about a possible resolution of this case that had been dragging on for two years. The media and the crowd, on the other hand, had come to Belize's Supreme Court expecting some action. Judge Ricardo Sancroft seemed to be making moves to limit the sensationalism of the day. He attempted to block vocal supporters of either side and asked the members of Henry's family who were admitted to the courtroom, to please remove their t shirts displaying Henry's face. Still, according to Jasmine Seth in the Luisa Chiara Monte, who was also there that day, this appearance wasn't meant to be a finale. It was just an opportunity to hear the judge out and then take some time to consider a plea.

I would call it a pretrial. It was essentially a meeting where they would sort of talk about a possible resolution of what the judge might do if the case were to resolve. But that would be it. And then she can consider all the positions and then make a final decision.

They'd have another week, ideally, but even 24 hours would be enough.

And so I didn't attend because there was no real reason for me to incur the expense of going down there for that. And the idea was she'd call me after and we'd go from there and we'd meet and discuss.

But when they got behind closed doors, everything changed. By all accounts, it did not go. According to plantain, the charges were presented. The judge offered some parameters for a possible sentence.

And then they said, if I don't give my plea right then and there, if I say not guilty, we're going to trial that same day with a lawyer that's never looked at my disclosure. Same day. Those were my options.

According to both Jasmine and Louisa, Hubert Elrington told the judge, without consulting his client, that the defense needed only 15 minutes to make a decision. Obviously not enough time to consult her fancy lawyers in Toronto or prepare for a trial. This is unusual and improper, but it's not against any rules. It also definitely was not the plan. To Jasmine, it felt like an ambush. She was rushed into a back room to huddle with Louisa and half of her legal team.

I have all these eyes on me. I have 15 minutes. I'm shaking. And then Elrington was yelling at me, like, in that back room, he was like, you're not gonna get anything better than this. He's like, you think you're in the driver's seat? This is your courtroom, then. So you're the driver of the bus. And he was like, he was just freaking out at me. And I was like, stop yelling at me.

Louisa couldn't believe what she was seeing. The lawyers who'd been instructed to buy a little time, were now telling her to give up and plead guilty.

They were literally screaming at her.

I said, you don't understand. In my mind right now, I'm thinking, okay, pleading guilty, how does this affect custody? How does it affect my Sybil? How does it affect travel? How does it affect everything? Like, I just didn't have time to process it. Like, this is not enough time. And he's like, I'm a senior counsel. I know best. And I'm like, okay, but it's my life. What happens today doesn't affect you none at all. It affects my life.

But there was another side of it, too.

And then I thought about Henry's family. I thought about my kids. I thought about if I was to draw this thing out. I know my lawyer's strategy is going to be, Henry was negligent and we're going to have to prove that he was not a responsible person, and we would have had to drag Henry through the mud.

That's how attorney OJ Elrington explained it as he stepped in front of the cameras outside of the courthouse to break the news.

After taking all things into consideration, especially, I can tell you, heavy on her heart in considering was to not put the family of the victim through the anguish of having to go through a trial proceeding, and therefore found that it was necessary at this point in time to take the guilty plea for all parties involved to move on.

And that was it. Nearly two years after the tragic death of Henry Jamat, through multiple lawyers and many, many adjournments, the case was settled abruptly. Jasmine Harton pleaded guilty to manslaughter by negligence. There would be no trial. None of the evidence would ever come to light. The supposedly empty chamber, the bullets on the pier, Henry's alleged intoxication, none of it. We got into this at length a few episodes ago, but it's worth pausing on. Jasmine almost certainly would have had a good case, but she could only make it by shifting the blame to Henry.

And the fact that it was no jail time and a fine. And I was under pressure. I just took it. I took it.

Afterwards, Seth said, you know, jasmine, it was probably the best decision anyway, and it was what we likely would have advised you to do, but that's not the point.

So while Jasmine was upset, feeling like she'd been forced to decide something so important in an instant, she was also relieved. Especially with a few days of distance.

I want to continue it. Just focus on getting the heck out of here and focus on my kids and focus on what I want from my new life. I just don't have time to play with the Belize politics. I'm so sick of it. It's a no win. Like, I cannot win, and so I'm not going to try anymore.

But there was still a massive unknown. What would her punishment be? This was also a factor in her plea. According to OJ Elrington, all the case.

Law says that guilty plea to a matter at this point in the proceeding shows that it should have a fine as opposed to confinement. He is limited to a fine.

In other words, the precedent was pretty clear. Previous cases of manslaughter by negligence in Belize with this plea resulted only in fines, no jail time. But this was all just so loaded. A fine would definitely not satisfy Henry Jamaats family or many Belizeans who are seeing now what they expected to see all along. Since the night the rich lady was found in distress by the body of the beloved cop, Jasmine probably seemed to be getting away with it. But that's emotion talking. The feeling that she actually did something criminal and should be imprisoned, it just doesn't square with the facts. This was a terrible tragedy, but it wasn't a murder. Considering what Jasmine had been through over the two years since the shooting, the forces stacked against her, and the many ways the system tried to break her, if there had been any way to prove this had been a murder, surely the authorities would have pressed for that. But it just wasn't. So this outcome, which probably felt unfair and unsatisfying for both Jasmine Hartin and for Henry's grieving family, was basically inevitable. Seth Weinstein agreed.

What I wanted for Jasmine was for her to put this chapter of her life behind her in a way that can ensure that she could focus on what really, really matters. And that is, you know, seeing her kids. She hadn't seen her kids in over a year, getting some normalcy back in her life. Am I happy the way things went down? No, not at all. Am I at least, was she able to, you know, spare the family? I think she was sincere on this. She really, you know, I think she really. She obviously lost her friend in this, like this. You know, that was sort of. Everybody forgets about that, but they were friends.

Jasmine's criminal case was finally over. But if she thought this was actually the end, she had another thing coming.

The zip code associated with the billing address is 12345.

Perfect. 012345 for the zip code.

That's me on the phone with customer service. Well, actually, it's not me. It's a clone of my voice powered by AI. Okay, fine. That was also a voice clone. This is me, Evan Ratliff for real. And this is shellgame, a podcast about what happens when I set an artificial version of me loose in the world. Search for shell game wherever you get.

Your podcasts, you're listening to white devil from camp side media. Jasmine Hartin, sentencing for her role in Henry Jamat's death was scheduled for just over a month after the plea. May 31, 2023. Almost exactly two years after that terrible night on the pier and Justice Sancroft stuck to his word, Jasmine would not be going back to jail. Sancroft levied a fine of 75,000 Belize dollars, which was not without controversy. OJ Elrington weighed in outside the courthouse.

It is a unprecedented sentence. It is significantly more than anybody has ever been fined for a matter like this. Significantly more.

This was not a lawyer spouting hyperbole. The amount set a new record for a manslaughter by negligence case in Belize. Jasmine would also have to complete 300 hours of community service at a Belize City YMCA and would have to produce an educational video using her own example to warn of the dangers of handling a firearm while intoxicated, which seemed a little odd considering no blood alcohol or toxicology test was ordered that night. Jerry Jamat, Henry's sister, chose not to comment on her way out of court. I'm sure the family wasn't satisfied either. And honestly, how could they be? No amount of money, nor even a prison sentence was going to bring Henry Jamal back. I have nothing to say. Sharees. I have nothing to say. Jasmine also avoided reporting as she walked to a waiting car with Louisa.

No comment.

Absolutely no comment.

Absolutely no comment.

This is a man's life. $75,000 for a man's life. Miss Harding, you need to answer the mother of Henry's children, Romit Wilson, spoke up for the first time in the wake of the case's resolution. I've not given any interviews to any media houses since the day Henry was killed, she told the Daily Mail. I have focused on our children, taking care of them and dealing with our grief. I know they say grief comes in waves, but ours has been constant. Wilson didn't seem to reject the verdict. She disregarded the publicity this case had attracted and especially Jasmine's role in it. Quote, my children and I have had to endure Miss Hartin recounting in interview after interview details of that awful night, details of our friendship with Henry, and even details about my relationship with Henry. Yesterday, she said she pled guilty to not put us through the anguish of a trial. I wish she had also thought about that before her international pr campaign. There was also clear and immediate anger from those who felt the judgment was inadequate, like police commissioner Chester Williams.

Certainly my wish would have been for her to get an imprisonment sentence. But the truth is, as a liar, I could understand the decision of the judge, and so we have to accept it. And it does not bring comfort to us, nor the family or that level of comfort that we would have wanted. But certainly there is some joy in it to see that she did not go unpunished.

Reporters had one other question for OJ Elrington. Is it her plan to leave the country?

Well, she has the right to leave the country now, just like you and I.

What about that community servicer?

She has to serve that before.

Yes, she. No, she can. Well, she's not intending to leave Belize, per se. I'm saying that though she has the right to be able to leave.

It was a while before I managed to speak to Jasmine again. I assumed she just needed some time to let it all settle in and was laying low. I should have known better.

I don't even know where to start. It's been absolutely insane.

Jasmine was, in fact, planning to leave Belize, and she finally could.

The media, they're making it seem like I'm trying to flee, which I'm not running away from my responsibilities. I haven't left Belize in three years. I want to go see my kids. I want to see my family and my friends. Like, get me out of here.

She had a flight booked first to Canada and then on to turks and Caicos. But before she could get on that plane, Jasmine needed to get her passport back.

I went to the Supreme Court, and I met with Mister Humes, who was the chief marshal for the court. And Humes had said that the judge was making a slight variation in his order and that he wanted guaranteed at least 25,000 of the funds before my passport would be released.

I guess as a hedge that she wasn't leaving the country to flee the fine. But this was a serious hurdle, too. Jasmine didn't have that kind of money just laying around. Fortunately, Louisa was outside. She came in and tried to help pay the fine first.

They say 20%. If you give us 20%, she'll get her passport back and she can go. Okay, fine. We go and do that. Nope, not enough. 50%. We do that. I'm not even kidding you. No, not enough. And I said. I said, jasmine, I'm just paying the whole fucking thing because that's where we're headed. To because they're fucking with you. They're going to do everything that. And this is not coming from the judge.

It was the court's clerk.

What fucking right does she have?

To be fair, nobody remembers the actual percentages they were throwing around, but the upshot was Louisa decided to just pay in full on the spot. Still, this didn't solve the problem either. Louisa obviously wasn't carrying $75,000 in cash around. She'd have to wire it. Except that Belize's supreme court couldn't receive a wire. So jasmine was told that she could get her lawyers, the Elringtons, to accept the money on the court's behalf. They could then transfer those funds via proper channels into a government account. So that ought to do it, right? Nope. There was another complication. Jasmine's passport wasn't even actually at the Supreme Court. It was at the registrar's office just down the road.

I get to the registrar and she said, I'm not releasing your passport. I'm not signing off on this until I have 25,000 in my hand cash. So then I went back to the Supreme Court. I told them that, you know, she won't release without money. He said, that's ridiculous. The judge said it could be released with just a simple proof. And keep in mind, our flight's 230, and now it's like 12:00 and we're freaking out. So then she wanted something signed by OJ Ellington stating that he would have send Supreme Court the funds. Then the flight gets delayed.

At least the travel gods were cooperating.

And flight was delayed like five times. Finally, the flight was going to leave at like 06:00 at night. So first of all, we have to get it typed out. So I'm in the back of a car in Belize City outside of the Supreme Court with Isaac, who's the assistant to Elrington. Then we have to get it printed. So we finally get to Elrington's office to print it off, and the office is closed and no one's there. Well, it turns out it's his birthday, so he's partying at a restaurant in Belize City. I rushed to midtown to get him to sign off on it. I rushed to registrar. I'm literally running down the street. I hand it to the registrar. I said, here's the undertaking. Here's proof that OJ has received the funds and he will pay the court on my behalf. And she said, I'm still not releasing it. So long story short, we missed our flights.

The case was resolved, Jasmine's fine was paid. And yet she was still trapped in the quicksand of Belize's bureaucracy with one excuse after another, keeping her in the country she was now actually legally allowed to exit for the first time since May of 2021.

They want me here for a reason. I feel like I'm definitely in a box. Like, I feel like I can't go left or right without being thrown in jail.

With her passport stuck, Jasmine contacted the canadian consulate, which agreed to provide her with an emergency travel document. Just a note to say that technically there is no embassy in Belize. There's just a consulate, but everyone calls it the embassy, so that's what we're gonna do. With the document in their hands, Jasmine, Mia, and Louisa hatched a plan.

What we are doing is getting my driver to bring me to the mexican border. Then we're going to cross with another private shuttle to get to Cancun. And then we were thinking about going from Cancun to Cuba and then taking a boat from Cuba to turks. The one thing is, and this is something that, you know, a few people have raised as a concern, is it's a. Like, I feel it. I feel like I'm walking into a trap. They know I'm coming from my babies, and it feels like they're bathing me there.

Under the COVID of darkness, the three women set out by a taxi to the mexican border crossing at Chetumal, where she was greeted with yet another surprise. The border guard refused the canadian travel document and made a call.

Excuse me. Excuse me. For what?

If you missed that, the guard hangs up the phone and says, they said, we're going to detain you.

For what? Who was that call from? That.

From.

Right now.

Jasmine called the representative at the canadian embassy who had helped her with her temporary papers.

I need to be known why I'm being detained. Hi, Jasmine. Hi. I'm sitting here with Miss Nirales. She said she just got a call from headquarters to detain me. Uh oh. Why? Okay, on what grounds? She said she doesn't know, but I thought, I need to know why they're detaining you. Yeah, I need to know why. Yeah, I asked her, and she said she doesn't know why I'm being detained, but I need.

Can you put her.

Can you. Yeah. You're on speaker. How are you doing?

Good. Good.

What seems to be a problem?

Well, I was just told to detain.

Her, so on what grounds are you detaining the canadian citizen?

I don't know what grounds are detaining her. I gave. I was given an instruction. So I will just wait and see when they come for her. What would be the situation? I don't want to. I don't want to disclose information. Sorry.

You're not letting her leave your office then? Is that what you're telling me?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And who was it that told you.

To detain Miss Hartank?

Kelly Nolte. This friendly representative of the canadian government is told to email the director of immigration and border management for an explanation as to why her citizen traveling on official documents is not allowed to exit Belize.

So. Kelly? Yeah, I'm here, so I'm just. Well, I'm removing my jewelry to give to Mia. I guessing I'm gonna be here. But listen, the last time I was detained for unknown reasons was in San Ignacio, and then they illegally moved me outside to, like, five different cells in a matter of 24 hours.

Jasmine is talking here about that night way back after the incident at Alaia, when she was detained without warning after a routine check in and moved from police station to police station throughout the night with no explanation, she was getting those vibes again, that someone higher up the food chain seemed to be pulling strings here.

I have no idea how long I'm actually going to be here. And if anything happens to me and my cell, I did not kill myself, okay? So I'm putting that on record. If anything ever happens to me. Wasn't me.

Okay, I hear you, Kelly. The canadian embassy rep seemed to be.

Worried, so just pay your friend to.

Take as many notes.

I've written everything down, including the director of management and immigration services. I'm going to call Mexico right now to let them know that you're being detained illegally and we're not sure why. All right. Are you okay? Jessica? I'm sorry. I wish there was more I could do for you. Physically. Physically or right now. And just do everything they say. Don't cause any trouble. Yeah, it's fine. I'm used to it. I know. Okay.

And with that, Jasmine was handed over to some police officers. They transported her to the Corozal police station, where she found herself once again locked in a cell. Mia and Luisa, plus the cab driver were told nothing. They decided to basically stake the place out.

We stayed up all night in a car outside watching to make sure they didn't move her. And we all took shifts and we stayed awake and watched the back and the front door.

Louise also called the media, and the news spread quickly. I'm standing outside of the Corozal police station where Jasmine Hartin has been detained on either an immigration offense or the intention to have absconded before paying her.

Court ordered $75,000 Belize fine, a fine.

Which again had already been paid in full and she was traveling on official canadian papers issued by the canadian government. So there was no immigration offense either. Everyone, including attorney OJ Elrington, was confused.

We have been trying to try to ascertain the reason for our detention and they have not provided us with a reason as yet.

I Chester Williams was said to have personally ordered the border guards to stop Jasmine, but we can't confirm that he was spotted in a car headed for the border that day, and he did subsequently feel the need to step in front of a tv mic with a non answer.

I don't know what she told him, but I am sure that has she told the embassy that her passport was being withheld as a result of a case before the court that had concluded she need to pay a certain fine before she gets the passport. They would not have issued a temporary document, but that's a different matter.

This was starting to feel like another setup, like the authorities were doing everything they could to keep Jasmine Hartin from leaving Belize, even though there was no legal basis for it. But who would care so much and why more? After the break, with Jasmine back behind bars yet again, it looked like something out of a dystopian farce. She jumped through all the required hoops, pled guilty against her better judgment, and paid the exorbitant fine in full, but none of it seemed to matter. Fortunately, though, this particular detention, or whatever it was at the corozal station was relatively brief. Jasmine was released late the following evening after spending a night and part of the next day in some pretty uncomfortable conditions.

It was disgusting. I don't think it's been cleaned in 20 years. It smelled like feces, urine, dried blood, vomit, fecal matter. It was repulsive. They don't give you toilet paper, they don't give you soap. We had a bucket in the corner, a concrete shower room, but it's shared amongst the women and the men. There was rats. There was cockroaches in every cell in blease. This is the first time a rat touched me. So that was pretty traumatizing.

When she got into the car with us after being released, the smell on her was nauseating to everybody in the car. Like, just because she was in this vomit piss shit cell, honestly, like, in the sweltering heat. And she reeked. And we were like, we couldn't wait to get her into a hotel room to shower before we kept going. Neither could she.

Louisa took Jasmine to a nearby hotel for that shower. Then the two of them, plus Mia, quietly made their way back to the border.

We had a cab driver that was taking us, and they wouldn't let you know. It's just one more final fuck you. They refused to let our cab driver drive us to the mexican immigration station. We had to walk with all our luggage in the dark.

The next time I heard from Jasmine, she was in Mexico City, but her plans had changed again. She'd received a letter from a court in Turks and Caicos informing her that Andrew had put a restraining order on her. He'd heard that she was likely now en route and was threatening arrest if she arrived in the country to try to see her children.

Nothing's gonna stop me from trying to see my kids, so, shit, I guess I'm going to jail. But, like, who wouldn't risk that for their kids? I love my babies. Even if I get to hug them for 2 seconds and smell them, sure, I'll go to jail.

That same day, our producer Joe sent me an article from the Toronto sun which included mention of this order. Jasmine had seen the story too, and she was furious.

The source, apparently my mother did an interview with him, leaked information, and I was like, mom, I will literally go to jail if you talk about this. Like, what were you thinking? Thinking, like, she did that thinking it would help. I was so stressed out. I didn't eat, I couldn't drink. I was gonna puke, like, all day. She knew the gravity.

So the thing Jasmine wanted more than anything else in the world, to see her kids in person, to hug them for the first time in over a year, was now feeling risky. She detoured north to Canada to consider her next move carefully. Her paranoia was back and reaching new levels.

I can do time, but I don't trust that it's just time that I would be doing. Like, I really don't. I don't know how far their reach is in Turks. They didn't expect me to make it this far. They definitely didn't expect me to still have endurance and drive and strength. And they really underestimated me. And now they're getting annoyed. They're getting tired of me and my resilience, and I think they're going to do whatever they can to squash me.

Jasmine did eventually summon the guts to fly to Turks and Caicos. She was not arrested, so she was able to see her twins. Finally, in June of last year, the first time she'd seen or touched them in 13 months and four days. I wish I could describe that joyful scene or really tell you anything about it, but for legal reasons, Jasmine was still unable to talk about the kids or the custody fight in Turks. But she did settle in, managed to rent a place, and presumably saw her kids, at least sometimes. Her life was still largely lawyers and court proceedings now in two countries, but she could only talk about the proceedings in Belize, where her efforts to relocate the custody matters kept being stymied.

What I can tell you is my appeal for custody in Belize is still ongoing because I don't believe Turks should have jurisdiction. They're not from here. They're born in Canada, raised in Belize. Turks should not have jurisdiction.

But the criminal matters in Belize, those weren't going away either. Jasmine's attempts to fulfill the community service requirements that came with her judgment had proven futile. She'd written and called the Belize City YMCA, where she was supposed to serve those hours repeatedly. And on the few occasions when someone picked up or replied, they were unsure of how to help her. The executive director at one point told a local reporter she, quote, knows nothing about the case and said that the y wasn't consulted to see if they actually wanted Jasmine Hartin as a volunteer. Jasmine's current attorney, Arthur Saldivar, blames the court.

Despite numerous attempts to have the court put in place the mechanism and arrange for her to do the committee service, nothing was done for an entire year, and pursuant to the law, a committee service order only lasts for twelve months and if not enforced within that twelve month period, becomes obsolete. Defunct.

Saldivar has subsequently filed to have that part of Jasmine's sentence amended. A Supreme Court justice will hear the matter soon. Even more Kafka esque was what was still happening with the cocaine possession and common assault charges, which date back to June of 2021.

It has been an absolute rollercoaster. Last year in San Pedro, we were coming to a close and we were winning the case, and when the prosecution realized that we were about to put in a no case submission without any reasons given, they decided to quit.

A no case submission is something the defense files after the prosecution rests, basically saying to the judge, the prosecution's evidence fails the test here. This case should not be in court at all, which here seemed pretty clear. But by quitting before resting, the prosecutor blocked such a move for the time being. Months later, a new prosecutor was assigned.

I flew back in November of 2023 to hopefully conclude the matter, with my witnesses also flying in. We show up to court and I'm told that it's no longer being heard in San Pedro, that it's been transferred to Belize City. And they did not tell me that. So I flew all the way to Belize and the case wasn't heard. So it was adjourned until January. So then finally in January, I had to fly back again. And the judge said she wasn't ready to proceed. The prosecutor wasn't ready.

Then in March, a new date and prosecutor, at least it was virtual this time.

On March 27, we were supposed to conclude all of this. And Alifa Elrington, the prosecutor, just didn't show up. It was then adjourned until April 22. Alifa Elrington asked for another adjournment to the 24th. And then on the 24th, she shows up an hour late and doesn't have.

Any of her witnesses ready, which meant adjourned again.

The next time she doesn't show up at all. Then she says, oh, I'll be there this afternoon.

Again, this was remote. Her belizean attorney, Arthur Saldivar was there.

So we're sitting there from 1130 until after twelve. Finally he says, your honor, like, what are we supposed to do here? There's no witnesses here. There's no prosecutor. Like, this is ridiculous. And as he's saying this, someone comes in and hands a note to the magistrate, and it's a note from Alifa Elrington saying that she's sick. And Arthur said, your honor, I can understand people get sick, but if this is a last minute illness that wasn't premeditated, then where are her witnesses? This has now been adjourned four times just since March.

According to Belize's criminal code. Minor charges like this, magistrate level cases have to be concluded within 39 weeks.

It's been over three years. And they continuously just keep dragging it out because they can use it against me in other parallel matters like custody. So that's what this is all about.

A guilty verdict, even on sham charges, means very little for jasmine and Belize, but it would provide ammo that does real harm to her in custody court. Her attorney suspects this is a factor.

It's amazing that it's still before the court. This is really just nonsense. You know, the court is being used as a tool. That's basically what this is all about.

But interestingly, Sal Dever didn't necessarily blame Andrew Ashcroft. There are others, he says, who also seem to want to see Jasmine suffer.

You know, there is still this sentiment in Belize that jasmine got off easy, right? That sentiment exists. It could be that motivating this, because they look at it from the point of view of a person shooting another in cold blood.

Jasmine still holds out hope that she can regain full custody, but that is just so unlikely now. The twins are settled at a good school with a father who worked and was providing. If there was ever going to be a middle ground, it would almost certainly be in turks. As 2023 bled into 2024, Jasmine seemed increasingly ready to close this chapter of the battle with Andrew. She was really tired of fighting.

I feel at this point like I can't reason with this man. I've tried. I've tried. And so I'm just praying. I'm just laying in bed on my birthday, praying to God for strength and guidance and just that something will happen. There has to be a light at the end of this tunnel, because at this point I'm at my final straw and I don't know how I can continue to hang on.

And what about Andrew? He's gotta be sick of this, too. Here's my theory. I think Andrew does want to move on, that he also wants peace, to come to a reasonable settlement that would allow the two of them to inhabit the same island as co parents. But for whatever reason, he isn't doing that. And the only explanation I can come up with is that his father, Michael Ashcroft, is not willing to lose, or rather to let Jasmine win, even if the win is just a fair middle ground. Andrew has denied to us that this is the case. His father has opted not to comment on the matter. But that's Jasmine's theory, too.

It's the father, and nobody can talk sense into that. Man like Michael just has a way of controlling every situation and everybody in his life. So when Michael feels he's been disobeyed, he gets ruthless.

And so instead, it seemed like this might never end. One day I saw a missed call, but when I called back, Jasmine was with the kids and couldn't talk. I'll call you as soon as they leave, she said it's important. A bit later, she texted me. Andrew, or some emissary that wasn't clear, had made an offer. They're offering me a peace. She said if she would agree to one thing, but I can't do that. She told me, I won't do that. The ask, it's a doozy.

They approached me and they said they heard about your podcast. I said, listen, if you help us stop this podcast, then we will treat you very nice and you'll be back into the family, and you'll be back with us again and not against us, and we'll help you, if you help us.

That was not the offer I was expecting to hear about. It's also something that Andrew has denied. Regardless, it's not really within Jasmine's power to stop people reporting her story. She could, I guess, issue a statement disavowing the show and her statements to us. Apparently that was proposed, but she said no. If I say that, my integrity, my character, business relationships, everything goes down the drain. She wrote to me in a text. It seems crazy, I know, but Jasmine talked to Andrew about it and recorded the call. He had some additional commentary on the podcast.

Josh has a lot of information. Josh is a small pawn. We will crush Josh. I said, do you understand that? Almost everything I've told anyone was backed up with evidence. I said, so not only would I look like a complete idiot if I said I was lying, but it's already. The proof is out there.

It was basically a war of attrition now with one side drained of all resources except for spirit.

I think the thing is, they really thought that I would have given up by now. So they're purposely stalling and dragging their feet to drag this out in hopes that I just give up and I won't. It's just not in my. It's not in my DNA to give up and walk away when I see an injustice and everything they've done to me. I'm not just going to walk away.

Anyone who's been through or been close to a difficult divorce or breakup with children involved will recognize the dynamics of Andrew and Jasmine's situation. But in most cases, energy and resources are worn down. A deal is made, and people get on with their lives. But here, Jasmine won't give up, and the other side is not short of resources. And that brings us to a dynamic that looms large over this whole story. Power and imbalance.

I was with this family for seven years. I have seen them do this repeatedly to people. They laugh about it. I've been at the dinner table, and both him and his father are laughing, and they're like, drag it out. Appeal, appeal, appeal, appeal. They drag it out to exhaust you of your resources, to mentally and emotionally drain you to the point you give up. And that's how they win. And that's what they're trying to do to me. And they're really, really close.

Andrew's lawyers denied that this is a tactic he and his father are using and that any discussion of this kind happened in front of Jasmine, which is a recurring theme you may have noticed. Denial. We would have loved to hear the Ashcroft side of the story. I'm sure they have valuable insight and their own unique perspective. It would have been fascinating to include it. That said, I also think it speaks volumes that they have simply refused to talk to us. My guess is that they did their own risk assessment and decided there was little to gain from participating. Instead, they could let Jasmine spin these elaborate stories, then just deny them through lawyers. It's effective. A lot of people still distrust Jasmine, no matter how much of what she's been saying for nearly three years now checks out. The irony is, we wouldn't even be talking about this, and you wouldn't be listening if it weren't for the privilege Jasmine Hartin found her way into in the first place. As I've said before, Jasmine experienced a change of circumstance. Few people do. She was a have and overnight became a have not. It explains so many of her troubles, but she does still have a kind of power that most people she has connections.

She has people who have helped her, often with money, and because of who she was, because of her connections to the Ashcroft family, Jasmine has an audience who will listen to her, who are fascinated by this saga. In other words, she has a means to fight back that not everyone has. And this makes her situation especially well suited to draw attention to the kind of injustice Belizeans face every day. We've spoken to many people in Belize over the past three years who know Jasmine. Not all of them like her, and many criticize her. But almost without exception, they tell us that their own experience of their country and its systems is reflected in what they have seen happening to Jasmine. Power wants to crush those who challenge it. A few weeks after this podcast started airing, I got a message from Wendy Ogzalu, who was still in exile, fearing for her life. Wendy said that she was moved to hear Jasmine's story laid out because to her, it represented something larger. The world needs to know what happens in the background, to know all the manipulative tactics that happen behind the scenes.

To control people who are not in positions of power.

Jasmine's story is not just a story about Jasmine. This is a story about people in this world who have no power at all and still stand up to it at times. As I've said before, it seemed like Jasmine was just being paranoid, and there were moments where her concerns seemed totally unrealistic, ridiculous even. But people who know Belize, like Wendy, they don't see it that way. And now I don't see it that way either. It's one of the many places in the world where the gross imbalance of power doesn't even bother hiding in the the shadows. It's everywhere. This podcast started with a tragic accident in which a man, Henry Jamaat, lost his life, and it ends, for better or worse, with a judgment of sorts. But for Jasmine Hartin, this isn't the end. The day in court and the ruling, it was an anti climax for everyone because she's still in this mess, and will be, we expect, long after the world loses interest in her story. One last thing before we sign off. I was talking to Jasmine on Zoom recently and recognized the t shirt she was wearing. It was the shirt she'd made for the port protests, the one with the photo of Michael Ashcroft on it with the horns and the phrase white devil.

I pointed it out to her and she laughed, remembering something from one of the many affidavits Andrew had submitted to court over the past few years. He'd apparently suggested that Jasmine be examined by a psychologist to determine why she had so much animosity toward his family.

And I'm like reading it while I'm wearing this shirt, and I'm like, I don't have animosity, white devil. Anyways, I do have animosity because they're horrible people and they've taken my children from me. So I use your head. Why do you think I hate you?

For Jasmine, Lord Ashcroft is the white devil. At least a white devil. And on a more personal level, Andrew is, too. But Jasmine didn't coin the phrase, of course. It's been around since the 15 hundreds. The Chinese used it to slur Europeans. Malcolm X used it to represent the ways racism touched everyone in the US and beyond. And yeah, in Belize, it became widely used as one of several nicknames for one of the country's most powerful men. And yet, it's not that simple if you're Henry Jamaat's family. Jasmine Hartin is the white devil. A wealthy canadian developer who killed a black cop and got away with it. That headline, that narrative was basically etched in stone the night of May 27, 2021. And no matter what additional evidence or information is brought forth, the jamats and plenty of other Belizeans won't ever forgive her. Which makes sense. As I said last week, I'd probably feel the same way if I were them. And you know what? The jamats may not ever forgive me either. I'm sure to them, I'm part white devil, too. And fair enough. But guess what? If you're a privileged westerner who enjoys the spoils of centuries of colonialism, cheap labor, cool sneakers, and fancy electronic gadgets.

It pains me to say this, but you probably have a bit of white devil in you, too. Under the shade I flourish under the rocks and stones this has been white devil, a campsite media original produced in association with Olive Bridge Entertainment before we get to the names of the people who helped make this series, I just wanted to reiterate what I said at the top. Thank you for sticking with us. This is one of those stories that kept surprising us, and the show we thought we were making at the start sure evolved over time. I certainly didn't think we'd end up making twelve episodes, but here we are. I also want to thank everyone who talked to us, trusted us, or supported the reporting of this project in some way, many of whom wouldn't want me to name them if I could. Finally, if you like this kind of work, narrative investigative journalism that takes a long time and lots of money to make, I hope you'll check out and support some of our other shows. You can find all of Campside's projects@campsidemedia.com better yet, you can follow us and hear all about our latest shows by subscribing to our newsletter@campsidemedia.com join.

That's campsitemedia.com join and now, the people who brought you white devil one last time. The show was written and reported by me, Josh Dean, with the series producer Joe Barrett. The story editor and sound designer is Mark McAdam, who also provided original music. Additional sound design by Joe Barrett Studio Engineering by Ewan Lytramuin our closing theme is under the shade I flourish by Chris Halton, and new Manhattan, including Eli Carvajal, Hava Carvajal, and Louie Chernioffs. This episode was fact checked by Sarah Ivory, additional research by Emma Simonov, and reporting in Belize by Hippolyto Novello artwork by Anthony Garace a special thanks to our operations team, Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren, Sabina, Mara Emma Simonoff, Destiny Dingle, and David Eichler. Campsite Media's executive producers are Vanessa Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff, Matt Scherr, and me, Josh Dean. It all has brought the executive producer is Will Gluck. If you enjoyed our show, please rate and review it on Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening. It really does help other people find the show, and here's a thought, maybe tell a friend to check out white devil while you're at it. Anyway, thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

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