Receiver asks to sell $30M in gold from shipwreck
A court-appointed receiver has asked a Franklin County judge to approve the sale of $30 million of gold brought up from the SS Central America shipwreck to help satisfy claims of creditors and investors.
The 16,000 artifacts recovered in 2014 by the Odyssey Marine Exploration’s dive on the 1857 wreck off the Carolina coast include gold dust, coins and bullion. An original estimate had placed the value at $47 million.
It is not the gold recovered in the original 1988 dive that is the subject of federal court proceedings against treasure hunter Thomas G. “Tommy” Thompson, who is suspected of hiding that gold.
Ira O. Kane, the receiver representing Recovery Limited Partnership and Columbus Exploration LLC, filed a motion Oct. 24 with Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Laurel Beatty-Blunt asking her to approve the agreement. The judge will hold a hearing for “any interested party” at 9 a.m. Nov. 30.
Kane has an agreement to sell the gold to California Gold Marketing Group LLC, which will sell the gold for cash.
Creating that pool of money is the first step in the process, said Quintin F. Lindsmith, an attorney for Kane. Next would be payments to creditors and, if any money is left over, to the investors, Lindsmith said.
Under Ohio law, creditors are paid before investors, he said.
If any money is remaining, this could be the first time investors — who’ve waited 30 years for a profit — could get even a portion of their principal investment back, Lindsmith said.
According to a summary of the agreement sent to investors, Odyssey would receive $15 million to resolve all of its claims. The Dispatch Printing Co. would receive an initial $1.75 million toward its loans. An initial $250,000 will be held by the receivership.
Once the remainder of the $5.75 million debt owed to The Dispatch Printing Co. is paid, the entirety of monthly payments and balance of the purchase price will be paid to the receivership. Since its sale to Gatehouse Media in June 2015, The Dispatch newspaper has not been a property of The Dispatch Printing Co.
The $13 million balance of the purchase price must be paid within a year of California Gold obtaining the bounty.
Kane said the proposed agreement would avoid what he estimated was $1 million in potential litigation.
Thompson, the brash treasure hunter who began the search for the Central America gold, has been in jail since December 2015. He was found in civil contempt for refusing to cooperate with investors seeking what’s left of the original haul. They’re specifically looking for 500 coins struck from gold bars brought up in 1988 and valued at between $2.5 million and $4 million.
U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley holds regular hearings asking whether Thompson is willing to cooperate. Each time, Thompson, 65, either says no or diverts to another topic, such as his health issues.
Marbley has called Thompson a “malingerer” and told him if he was content to sit in jail, he was content to let him sit.
Prosecutors suspect the location of the coins might be found in a trust in Belize. Thompson has refused to give the investors the power to examine the trust.
Technically, Marbley can keep Thompson in jail indefinitely. Thompson has asked that the civil contempt finding be thrown out so he can begin serving a two-year criminal contempt charge issued when he failed to appear for a 2012 court hearing and instead fled to Florida.