The Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed the appeals of Stephen "Die" Stubbs and Dion "Buju" Minnis, who were both sentenced to 36 months in prison for conspiracy to import marijuana and conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to supply in 2012.
According to the prosecution, Stubbs and Minnis organized the shipment of 3,935 pounds of marijuana from Jamaica to The Bahamas.
Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) officers uncovered the conspiracy to smuggle the drugs through telephone intercepts.
Police received authorizations in September 2009 to monitor the phones of Stubbs and Minnis, who was released from prison for drug smuggling in 2006.
Stubbs made 14 calls to an unidentified man in Jamaica discussing the shipment of the drugs, while Minnis spoke of a vessel being ready in his intercepted calls, according to the evidence.
Officers watched as the men prepared the boat for its voyage to Jamaica, when the boat left The Bahamas and when it returned, thanks to information gleaned from the intercepts.
Officers used the coordinates from a handheld GPS that they seized from a Honda Civic that Stubbs and David Colebrooke were traveling in on September 30, 2009.
Police stopped the car on Yamacraw Hill Road after they watched Stubbs collect Colebrooke after he arrived at Blue Water Cay, off Fox Hill Road, by a boat.
Minnis was arrested in a wrecker that towed the boat from Blue Water Cay.
The boat's hatch was missing.
A paint and polymer analyst from the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, said paint samples from the hatch and the area on the boat where the hatch should have been came from the same source.
At the appeal, attorney Murrio Ducille, who represents Stubbs and Minnis, argued that the trial magistrate erred when she admitted the wiretaps and allowed a police officer to identify the voices on the covert recordings as those of the defendants.
However, the Court of Appeal agreed with the magistrate's decision that the prosecution had proved its case to the required standard.
Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Neil Brathwaite appeared for the Crown.
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