Two men jailed for a foiled plot to import more than $700,000 of heroin have lost an appeal against their convictions.

Lorenzo Lottimore, 34, and Craig Hatherley, 29, were found guilty in 2012 of conspiring with others to import almost 400 grams of diamorphine to Bermuda. Lottimore was sentenced to 15 years behind bars, while Hatherley was sentenced to 12 years for his role.

However, during a sitting of the Court of Appeal last autumn, the pair argued that their trial had been tainted by how the Supreme Court handled co-conspirator David Carroll.

During their trial, the court heard that the conspiracy came to light after a Philadelphia baggage handler, Brian Wade, was caught hiding a package in a Bermuda-bound aircraft and agreed to assist Homeland Security in the United States.

Wade recorded several phone conversations with a man about bringing more drugs to the Island. While the Bermudian contact was referred to as “Afro”, prosecutors argued that he was actually Lottimore. In April 2010, Hatherley travelled to New York where he was caught on camera giving an undercover officer a package containing $2,000 cash and heroin with a street value of $775,000, saying: “The money and everything is in there.”

Wade subsequently told his Bermudian contact that the drugs would be placed on a flight to Bermuda, but Homeland Security actually placed a dummy package on the flight.

That package was collected by an airport employee and hidden in a flask before being delivered to Carroll at Burchall’s Cove in Hamilton Parish. With police looking on, Carroll passed the flask to Lottimore. Officers then descended on the area, arresting both men as they attempted to flee. Hatherley was arrested the next day outside his home. A subsequent search of Lottimore’s home revealed documentation of a Western Union money transfer used to pay Wade, along with phone numbers related to the investigation.

Carroll pleaded guilty to conspiring to import unspecified drugs, stating that he believed the package contained cannabis rather than heroin. Carroll also pleaded guilty to a second count of conspiring to import cannabis in connection to an unrelated incident.

Lottimore and Hatherley, meanwhile, denied a charge of conspiring to import heroin, but were convicted by a jury after a Supreme Court trial.

During a Court of Appeal hearing last November, Lottimore and Hatherley argued that Carroll’s presence on the indictment — combined with the jury having heard that he pleaded guilty to importing an unspecified drug — was prejudicial against them.

According to a written judgment, Crown counsel Garrett Byrne accepted that it might have been better if Carroll had not been included, but that Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons and the defence had properly directed the jury. Both appellants also argued there was not enough evidence to convict, with Hatherley, through defence lawyer Larry Mussenden, saying there was no evidence before the courts that he knew the package he handed to the undercover officer contained heroin. However, a written Reasons for Decision, dated January 8, said: “There was a strong circumstantial case against both defendants, unchallenged by any evidence from either of them.

“In our view, the jury was entitled to find that Hatherley knew or suspected that the package contained a drug and that the drug was heroin. He was acting pursuant to an agreement made between Wade and ‘Afro’, that ‘Afro’ was Lottimore and that, accordingly, both Hatherley and Lottimore were party to an agreement to import those drugs into Bermuda.”