Prosecutors went to court again yesterday in a bid to confiscate the assets of drug importer and champion powerboat racer Kirk Roberts.

It was the second time Director of Public Prosecutions Kulandra Ratneser had attempted to seize the assets of the 41-year-old since he was convicted and jailed for ten years in August last year for conspiring to import 200 pounds of marijuana into the Island.

However, yesterday in Supreme Court, Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons adjourned the matter as Roberts' defence attorney Ed Bailey had appealed the conviction in the Privy Council.

She said the courts in Bermuda could not deal with the matter until the Privy Council had come to a decision, when ever that would be.

Mr. Bailey had appealed the jury's decision at Bermuda's Court of Appeal last year, but was unsuccessful after it was deemed that no miscarriage of justice had taken place.

He had argued that details of an immunity deal given to admitted drug dealer and key witness Heinz Golombeck were not disclosed by the office of the DPP.

But the DPP's office had argued there was nothing improper in the way the case was heard and the Court of Appeal agreed, so Mr. Bailey took the appeal to the Privy Council, instead.

When Roberts was first convicted last year, prosecutors announced they would be seeking to confiscate any of his real estate, his boat yard, vehicles and money held in trust - under the Proceeds of Crime Act 1997.

The first writ was issued against Roberts, of West Side Road, Sandys, in October last year, and then on June 9 this year, Mr. Ratneser issued another writ against him under the same Act.

The first writ was adjourned because of the appeal in Bermuda, and now the second writ has been adjourned because of the appeal to the Privy Council.

The powerboat racer and boatwright was smacked with the ten year sentence last summer after Justice Norma Wade-Miller said Roberts' conspiracy was “as serious as any that can be imagine”.

She added: “You played a central role in a complicated conspiracy to have illegal drugs brought to Bermuda. You instigated and you masterminded it.”

It was Roberts' first criminal conviction, although both of his parents, Barbara and William Roberts, were convicted of possession, handling and possession with intent to supply of 30 pounds of cocaine in 1997. They both received 12-year sentences and their convictions were upheld on appeal.

Roberts was never charged with any offence in relation to the cocaine found in the refrigerator of the family home, although lawyer for his parents, Richard Hector, argued at the time that “there was a third person involved in this whole thing not before you and he has left his parents to face the music.”

Over the course of the trial last year, it emerged that Roberts hired a German sailboat owner - Golombeck - to bring marijuana to the Island in early 2000.

Golombeck testified that he sailed the Caribbean with Bermudian Winston Robinson in search of the drugs for almost a year, and the very week Robinson's name was called in the trial, he was arrested in St. Maarten on a boat with 10,000 pounds of cannabis. He has since been convicted and deported.

Over that time period, Golombeck and Robinson said they were ripped off for $72,000 in Antigua, chased the wrong drug in Nevis and missed a connection in Haiti when the boat bringing drugs was nabbed by the US Coast Guard.

And the court heard how Roberts had supported the men with monetary transfers - via the now defunct Western Union connection - until a buyer was eventually established in St. Vincent.

The whistle was finally blown on Roberts after Golombeck went to Bermuda Police voluntarily.