The love story between Hollywood actress LisaRaye McCoy and Turks and Caicos Islands Premier Michael Misick starred a beautiful bride in a gown that sported hand-sewn Swarovsky crystals and a 30-foot train.

The wedding altar at the luxury resort was covered in orchids, and her diamond engagement ring was the size of an ice cube. Their life together was set in a beachfront villa and cast by the jet set.

That was so two seasons ago.

The plot turns have since featured allegations of rape, infidelity, domestic violence and corruption. Now, at least three law-enforcement agencies are investigating, while the people of this tiny island southeast of the Bahamas scratch their heads over how their government leader went from being a dashing groom to the protagonist of a messy series of scandals heating up the blogosphere and the radio dial.

"This is a reality show — just over the Internet," said political leader Lloyd Stubbs, a spokesman for the premier's Progressive National Party. "They ain't famous enough to make television."

Michael, 42, and LisaRaye, 40, met in 2005 at an awards ceremony in Atlanta. She has said that their whirlwind courtship lasted as long as it took her to plan the lavish April 2006 wedding at an exclusive resort here.

Misick is a London-educated lawyer and scion of a powerful political family. He was named chief minister in 2003, taking over the country's top job from his brother.

But locals never took kindly to their new first lady, who starred in the CW network show "All of Us." She was sassy, from the South Side of Chicago, had a penchant for rather skimpy outfits, and never did make the rounds at all the island's churches. Her role as a stripper in the movie "Player's Club" and bawdy photo spread in the men's urban magazine Smooth didn't help.

"I don't think she was first-lady material," said Angela Tucker Arthur, a member of the opposition party. "How's he going to bring a half-naked woman down here and call her his first lady? You have plenty of Christians and elderly who will never accept that."

Misick even gave his wife a starring role in an ad campaign to promote the islands in the United States. But members of Misick's party were aghast at their leader's lavish lifestyle and wrote him a letter telling him so.

A case in point: Stubbs, a staunch defender of Misick, looked at the glossy spread of their wedding photos that the couple published. "This is not a wedding album," he said. "It's a magazine."

The governing party was worried last year about rumours that the couple planned to star in a reality show, but the opposition party was troubled by something worse.

It accused Misick of orchestrating massive government corruption, and questioned how a man whose salary is $150,000 — and who declared his net worth at $50,000 when he took office five years ago — managed to build a $2.5 million beachfront mansion modelled after the White House.

This British territory, a string of 40 islands just north of Hispaniola, is undergoing a massive development boom. Opposition politicians question whether government officials are getting rich from it.

"A brother can't make some money?" Stubbs said. "It's not like he bought a $10 million house out of his pocket. He is paying a bank loan. Michael is a businessman."

Just when the British started to investigate the allegations, someone started to burn down the courthouses here — the ones that held important records. The British Government sent an inquiry commission to look into the corruption allegations.

Then things got a bit worse. In April, a dancer hired to perform at the opening of the Nikki Beach Resort here filed a police report in Florida, where she lives, saying Misick had raped her at the house in Providenciales. Misick denied the charges, and LisaRaye stood by him. (Misick's friends say the encounter was consensual.)

The FBI is reportedly investigating, but the agency did not return calls seeking confirmation.

"The corruption allegations began in the beginning of the year; LisaRaye dealt with that," LisaRaye's spokeswoman Lynn Jeter said in a telephone interview. 'Then the allegations of rape came. She stood behind him, upholding and uplifting him. Then she starts getting all these text messages and e-mails from people at the Turks and Caicos music festival saying, 'What's your man doing?' "

Misick was spotted at the music festival this summer with BET channel hostess Rocsi.

"That was the straw that broke the camel's back," Jeter said. "It was disrespectful."

But one Misick pal says the couple had already quietly broken up by the time the premier took Rocsi to the festival. He had already removed the name Villa del Raye from the house.

This month, the premier announced their separation.

Jeter said LisaRaye flew back to the island last week at Misick's request to hash out an amicable separation agreement. LisaRaye and her entourage spent several days at the former Villa del Raye, and then a few days at the Nikki Beach Resort on Misick's dime.

But then someone checked LisaRaye out of the hotel, Jeter said, so she returned to the mansion. She arrived with Jeter, a bodyguard and two recording devices – one in her hand and the other strapped to her torso, witnesses said.

The homecoming did not go smoothly.

"At two minutes after 10 p.m. on the 13th of August, the police were called to the premier's residence," Detective Sgt. Calvin Chase said, barely able to contain a chuckle. "We did make a report. There were reports of assaults. There was more than one alleged assault reported by more than one person."

Jeter provided the rest of the details: Misick blocked LisaRaye as she tried to walk up the stairs of the home, and his sister came up behind her.

LisaRaye "is boxed in when someone suddenly bit her," Jeter said. "So she in turn bit Michael. In a situation like that, you don't stop to figure out who is biting you. You bite the first person who is nearest you. That was Michael." Misick filed a police report, saying his wife bit his ear. LisaRaye sought medical attention for a wound on her upper arm, photos of which are featured in the latest issue of Essence magazine. Jeter said she didn't know who bit her.

On her way out of the country, LisaRaye told reporters that her husband tried to remove her from her home by force and was "spiralling out of control." Jeter said LisaRaye will return to the island to settle the matter and looks forward to getting on with her career.

Misick's chief of staff said the premier will "absolutely not comment" on any of it.

"These things amount to unnecessary distractions," said Hayden Boyce, editor of the Sun newspaper, who was at the house the night of the incident. "Its people are anxious for the country to settle down and return to a state of normalcy. Nobody likes the publicity generated by this string of events."

Boyce, whose wife is the minister of health, said Misick is his friend, and he declined to discuss the issue further. Boyce's newspaper states that reports in the competing Turks and Caicos Weekly News that Misick was acting like a "raving maniac" are false.

"If you were a creative writer or novelist, you could not find a better place than this," said Weekly News editor Blythe Duncanson. 'There's a quote from the Greeks, 'Whom the gods will destroy, first they make mad.' As if the thing with the first rape charge was not enough, then we had the corruption inquiry and then the thing at the house with the police. You don't know where it's going to end next.

"It keeps our reporters busy."