Canadian stripper Anna Formanchuck was jailed for seven years yesterday for smuggling $93,000 of cocaine into Bermuda in golf clubs.

A Supreme Court jury found her guilty by 11-one of importing the drugs and possessing them with intent to supply on July 5 last year. Formanchuck told Assistant Justice Archibald Warner: "I'm sorry things turned out this way. Let the Lord's will be done."

She then wept copiously when sentence was passed. Mr. Justice Warner took into account the fact that Formanchuck had given some co-operation in that she had named names although he questioned the value of the information.

Crown counsel Graveney Bannister said the range of sentence for these types of offences was eight to ten years and he noted the gravity of the offences which were proliferating in Bermuda.

He said the courts had to take note of the will of Parliament that recognised the need to tackle drugs to reinforce community values.

The three man and nine woman jury rejected Formanchuck's claims that when she agreed at Atlanta airport to take the golf bag in for Bermudian Alphonso Caesar she did not know it contained drugs.

She said Mr. Caesar had asked her a month earlier if she would bring drugs into Bermuda and she said she answered no.

The 22-year-old from Toronto said Mr. Caesar and Bermudian nightclub owner Delvin Bean had asked her and a friend to do a strip show in Atlanta.

Mr. Caesar paid for her ticket, but she said she was surprised to find out it was for Bermuda instead. She said she agreed to take on the clubs as a "favour" to Mr. Caesar, but they were seized by Customs when she arrived at Bermuda International Airport on July 5.

Formanchuck was allowed to leave the Airport, and the clubs were returned to her on July 8 as she was about to fly to Atlanta.

But she was hauled off the flight by US Immigration officials and then Customs officers and Police in Bermuda cut open the clubs and found the cocaine.

The jury rejected Formanchuck's claim that the clubs she surrendered on July 5 were different from the ones she collected on July 8. Her lawyer Elizabeth Christopher had argued there was no proof the clubs her client brought in were the same ones which contained the cocaine.