Ex-treasure hunter still stuck in jail
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A former deep-sea treasure hunter is about to mark his fifth year in jail for refusing to disclose the whereabouts of 500 missing coins made from gold found in an historic shipwreck.
Research scientist Tommy Thompson isn’t incarcerated for breaking the law. Instead, he’s being held in contempt of court for an unusually long stretch — well past the normal maximum limit of an 18-month internment in cases of witnesses refusing to cooperate.
But nothing is usual about Thompson’s case, which dates to his discovery of the S.S. America, known as the Ship of Gold, in 1988. The gold rushera ship sank in a hurricane off South Carolina in 1857 with thousands of pounds of gold aboard, contributing to an economic panic.
Despite an investors lawsuit and a federal court order, Thompson still won’t cooperate with authorities trying to find those coins, according to court records, federal prosecutors and the judge who found Thompson in contempt.
“He creates a patent for a submarine, but he can’t remember where he put the loot,” federal Judge Algenon Marbley said during a 2017 hearing.
Thompson’s legal troubles stem from the 161 investors who paid Thompson $12.7 million to find the ship, never
seeing any proceeds and finally sued.
Back in 2012, a different federal judge ordered Thompson to appear in court to disclose the coins’ whereabouts. Instead, Thompson fled to Florida where he lived with his longtime female companion at a hotel where he was living near Boca Raton. US marshals tracked him down and arrested him in early 2015.
Thompson pleaded guilty for his failure to appeal and was sentenced to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Thompson’s criminal sentence has been delayed until the issue of the gold coins is resolved.
That April 2015 plea deal required Thompson to answer questions in
closed-door sessions about the whereabouts of the coins, which the government says are worth $2 million to $4 million.
Thompson refused several times, and on Dec. 15, 2015, Marbley found Thompson in contempt of court and ordered him to stay in jail — and pay a $1,000 daily fine — until he responds.
In late October of this year, Thompson appeared by video for his latest hearing.
Thompson, 68, has said he suffers from a rare form of chronic fatigue syndrome that has created problems with short-term memory. The government contends Thompson is refusing to cooperate.