A Bahamian judge is threatening to throw ‘murder for hire’ housewife Lindsay Shiver back in prison for appearing on US TV ahead of her trial, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
Judge Cheryl Grant-Thompson hit the roof after an ABC crew accompanied a glammed-up Shiver, 37, as she travelled back to Nassau for a pre-trial hearing.
The posed-up footage ran on Good Morning America alongside an interview with her co-accused bartender beau Adrien Bethel, in which he scoffed at claims they had plotted with alleged hitman Faron Newbold Jr to slay Shiver’s estranged husband Robert, 39.
The lovebirds were hit with a gag order at a hastily arranged zoom conference where they insisted they had only agreed for the material to be aired after their trial concluded sometime next year.
But Judge Grant-Thompson wants to see copies of the contracts they signed with ABC and has vowed to lock them up for contempt of court if the paperwork doesn’t exonerate them.
A judge in the Bahamas is threatening to throw Lindsay Shiver back in jail after the murder for hire accused housewife appeared on US TV before her trial
Ex-beauty queen Shiver has been ordered to fly back to the Bahamas on October 24 to explain herself in person. She and Bethel could be whisked straight to Nassau’s Fox Hill Prison if their bail is revoked.
The rat-infested facility, considered one of the Caribbean’s grimmest lockups, has been slammed by Amnesty International because of the squalid conditions and high number of suicides.
The spat is the latest contentious episode in an often-times shambolic court process that has seen Shiver’s trial pushed back multiple times just as it’s poised to begin, the latest date set for March 2025, nearly two years after her arrest.
A defendant giving an interview at this stage might be unwise but would be perfectly legal in the US.
But it’s heavily frowned upon in the Bahamas, which has its roots in the British justice system, where it’s considered contempt of court to broadcast anything ahead of a trial that could influence a prospective juror.
Wealthy Georgia couple Lindsay and Robert Shiver once had it all – three great kids, a seven-bed mansion, a private jet and a vacation home in Baker’s Bay, an ultra-exclusive Bahamas enclave where the likes of Tom Brady and Michael Jordan own property.
However, former Auburn football star Robert filed for divorce in April 2023 accusing his wife of cheating, while Shiver countered with claims of ‘physical and mentally cruel treatment’.
A Glammed-up Shiver, 37, was accompanied by ABC’s Good Morning America as she travelled to Nassau for a pre-trial hearing
Shiver is accused of plotting the murder alongside her barman lover Adrien Bethel, 28, who also appeared on the GMA segment and gave an interview protesting his innocence
Bethel’s friend Faron Newbold, 29, was recruited to be the hitman in the alleged plot, prosecutors say
Three months later she was sensationally charged in the Bahamas with allegedly conspiring with her new lover Bethel, 28, to have his childhood pal Newbold, 29, murder Robert.
Shiver had allegedly sent Newbold Jr pictures of her estranged husband of 13 years drinking in a bar near Baker’s Bay – along with a WhatsApp message stating ‘kill him’.
The case also hinges on a disputed ‘confession’ in which she admitted to cops that she told Bethel she ‘wanted to kill’ Robert and that Bethel ‘understood’ and ‘wanted to kill him also.’
In the same police interview, however, Shiver insisted that any talk of killing was merely ‘said out of anger and frustration’, according to prosecution documents obtained by DailyMail.com.
When Bahamian authorities informed Robert of the alleged threat, he branded his wife ‘manipulating’ and accused her of having multiple affairs, according to the docs.
‘If something were to happen to me Lindsay would receive loads of money,’ added the dad-of-three, who flew back to the US while his ex spent 19 days locked up in Fox Hill.
Bahamian court laws strongly prohibit pre trial publicity such as TV appearances, which can be deemed contempt of court. Pictured: Shiver and her estranged husband with their children
Shiver, pictured with her estranged husband, claims she and Bethel were under the impression the material would only air after the trial
Shiver was eventually released on $100,000 bail and given permission to return to the US to live with her parents in Abbeville, Alabama with an electronic ankle tag monitoring her movements.
She, Bethel and Newbold face up to 60 years in prison if they are found guilty.
But prosecutors will have to persuade a jury that the messages represented a genuine plot against him – rather than the three friends merely letting off steam.
Robert is still living at the couple’s marital home in Thomasville, Georgia, where their hostile divorce and custody battle has stalled because of the Nassau proceedings.
It could be a long wait as criminal cases are frequently plagued by delays in the overburdened Bahamian justice system where it typically takes three years or longer to make it to trial.
Alabama native Shiver graduated from Auburn University, where the two met in 2007 while Robert was captain of the football team.
A judge has now demanded to examine Shiver and Bethel’s ABC contracts and vowed to lock them up if they violate the strict court guidance
Shiver enters a courtroom in Nassau, Bahamas on August 9, 2023
Robert signed with the Atlanta Falcons as a free agent but was let go in roster cuts ahead of the 2009 season and eventually became executive vice president for a life insurance company.
He’s currently dating reality TV star Savannah Chrisley, 27, and has never spoken publicly about his estranged wife.
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com in August 2023, Bethel declared his love for Shiver and said her marriage was on the rocks long before he came on the scene.
‘None of us have anything to hide. People are taking everything at face value and defaming us,’ he told us.
