Border authorities detained Canadian socialite Jasmine Hartin when she attempted to leave Belize this week after being sentenced for killing her police officer friend.
According to the Toronto Sun, Hartin, 34, was stopped at the border while planning to pick up her children, who were taken out of the country by her former common-law husband, Andrew Ashcroft.
In 2021, Hasmine shot and killed Belize police official, Henry Jemmott, 42. While she managed to evade imprisonment, she received an order to pay $37,000. On Saturday, her lawyer, Orson Elrington, confirmed that she paid the fine to the Jemmott family.
Orson said he anticipated that Hartin would receive her passport following the payment and would be allowed to leave Belize, The Times reports.
However, a court official declined to return her passport, Hardin’s spokesperson, Louisa Chiaramonte, reportedly said. Hardin then obtained an emergency travel document and attempted to cross into Mexico from Santa Elena on Tuesday.
“We had the border agent coming up with story after story as to why she didn’t have the proper things to cross. Every time she produced what [the agent] said was needed, she would come up with another thing,” Chiaramonte said.
Four hours later, police arrived and took Hartin to a police station in Corozal for questioning.
Another source told the Sun that Hardin has been accused of forging travel documents in an attempt to flee, even though the fines were already paid.
“Jasmine is being detained at the Belize border while trying to enter Mexico with documents provided to her by the Canadian Embassy, they are emergency travel documents because Belize won’t release her passport,” a source told the Sun.
“That’s even though she paid the fine in full. And so the Canadian government gave her an emergency travel document…And now they are arresting her for forging travel documents that they were just presented with — directly from the Canadian Embassy.”
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Hartin was having drinks with Jemmott when she fatally shot him in the head. Jemmot’s body was found in the water next to a pier. Hartin had remained on the pier, where the two had been sitting, and her clothes and arms were covered in blood.
Hartin initially told police Jemmott had been shot by someone on a passing boat. She then stopped communicating with police but began cooperating again after they threatened to charge her with cocaine possession.
Williams told 7 News Belize that Hartin provided a “statement under caution,” telling investigators that she was giving Jemmott a massage and when she handed him his service gun, it accidentally discharged. After he was shot, her friend fell on her, Hartin said, and she pushed him off her — when he fell into the water.
Jemmott’s sister Cherry Jemmott, who is an assistant police superintendent, questioned Hartin’s story, reportedly telling the Daily Mail that her brother “had a gunshot behind his ear like an assassination.”
“He was a top cop. I don’t know how he let down his guard to be shot with his own gun,” she said.
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[Feature Photo via LinkedIn]
