Judge: Ex-deep sea treasure hunter deceptive about coins
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP): AN EX-DEEP sea treasure hunter is faking memory problems and intentionally deceiving authorities about the location of missing coins minted from gold on board an 1857 shipwreck, a federal judge has ruled.
Tommy Thompson has been held in contempt of court since mid-December last year, when Judge Algenon Marbley found he violated a plea deal by refusing to respond. Thompson also was ordered to pay US$1,000 per day until he cooperates.
Thompson has said he told everything he knew during depositions last fall and argued he could not provide more complete answers, in part, because he suffers from a neurological disorder. He also said he could refresh his memory by reviewing documents in 75 boxes held by the US Marshals Service, but that he had not been allowed access to that information, according to court records.
Psychiatric evaluations and results of a September court hearing show Thompson is not suffering from a condition that would prevent him from complying with his plea deal, Marbley said in a ruling.
A test by a court-ordered psychiatrist turned up minor memory problems, the psychiatrist said in a sealed document, part of which Marbley quoted in his order.
Thompson “routinely made references to things that demonstrated his retention of information from minutes and hours earlier, he remembered things from one day to the next, he recalled aspects of his various cases with great specificity, and he recalled information about his career and business adventures dating back decades,” according to the evaluation.
A message was left on Monday with Thompson’s attorney. Marbley has scheduled an update hearing for today.
The coins in question were minted from gold taken from the SS America, which sank in a hurricane off South Carolina in 1857.
Thompson previously said, without providing details, that the coins were turned over to a trust in Belize. The government, which believes the coins are worth millions of dollars, has doubts on Thompson’s explanation. A fugitive from Ohio since 2012, Thompson was apprehended in January 2015 along with his long-time female companion at a hotel where he was living near Boca Raton, Florida.
Thompson pleaded guilty in April of last year to contempt of court for failing to appear before a federal judge in 2012. Part of his plea deal requires him to answer questions in closed-door sessions about the whereabouts of the gold coins.