the Hon. Mr. Justice Ground yesterday for his role in the smuggling of some $22,000 worth of heroin onto the Island.

Lamont Mason, 25, was charged with importing the 19.45 grams of diamorphine last July after the drugs were found in the false heel of a boot on his arrival at the Civil Air Terminal from the US.

Mason's co-conspirator in the crime, 24-year-old New York City hardware salesman Michael Anthony Ross, was sentenced on Monday to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to serving as a courier in the smuggling.

Yesterday, Mason, who was singled out as the mastermind of the affair, was sentenced by Justice Ground to six-and-a-half years in prison after he too entered a guilty plea.

Despite the prominent role that Mason had played in the crime, Justice Ground said he had consented to a "slight reduction'' in the seven to eight years of prison time that Crown Counsel Mr. Philip Storr had suggested at Ross' trial because of Mason's admission of guilt.

"It (the sentence) would have been considerably higher without a guilty plea and you should recognise that,'' Justice Ground told Mason.

The defendant, who was represented at his trial by defence attorney Mr. Archie Warner, had spent some two months in jail before he was released on bail in the fall.

The two months are to be deducted from the six-and-a-half-year sentence that Mason now must serve. Two days ago, Ross had agreed during his hearing that he would serve as a witness for the prosecution in any trial of his fellow American.

Justice Ground had stated that he took that into account in determining Ross' sentence.

Ross, a father of three who walks with a walker as a result of injuries he received in a car accident, had spent the previous nine months in the Westgate Correctional Facility.

That time was also subtracted from his five-year sentence.