The Court of Appeal upheld a lower court’s conviction and three year sentence for a pilot found guilty of cocaine possession with intent to supply.
Justices Anita Allen, Stanley John and Neville Adderley, having reviewed the evidence and submissions by attorney Dr Glendon Rolle, and Crown prosecutor Neil Brathwaite, came to the conclusion that the evidence supported 41-year-old Valentino Collie’s conviction for importation of dangerous drugs and possession of dangerous drugs with intent to supply.
However, the judges squashed his convictions for conspiracy to import dangerous drugs and conspiracy to possess dangerous drugs with intent to supply having regard to his former co-accused, Patrick Pyfrom, being acquitted of the same charges on appeal last year.
Collie, whose appeal was filed late but who was granted an extension, had his sentence of three years imprisonment from Magistrates Court affirmed.
Collie and Pyfrom were alleged to have committed the four crimes on January 16, 2011, after flying the drugs from Providenciales, Turks and Caicos.
On the day in question, both men were arrested by police at the Lynden Pindling International Airport after disembarking from a private plane.
The cocaine, weighing 41 pounds and valued at $256,000, was found in a suitcase that had been carried off the plane.
