Husband of woman lost at sea is arrested for coin theft
A BRITISH man who reported his wife missing during a honeymoon sailing trip in the Caribbean has been arrested on suspicion of stealing almost £80,000 in rare coins.
Lewis Bennett, 38, who lives in Florida, appeared in court in Key West yesterday wearing a blue and grey prison uniform and spoke only to confirm that he could afford a lawyer. He was ordered to remain in custody before a bail hearing on Friday.
Investigators say they recovered some of the stolen coins from Mr Bennett’s life raft when he was rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter on the night his new wife Isabella Hellmann, 41, was lost overboard in May. The couple have a nine-month-old daughter.
His arrest adds a new twist to a mystery that has set Ms Hellman’s relatives against Mr Bennett as they try to find out what happened to her as she sailed through the waters of the Caribbean on a belated honeymoon.
Ms Hellman’s sister, Dayana, said her family simply wanted to know what happened on the boat that night.
“Every day I have more and more questions, but I don’t have answers to them,” she told WPTV, the local television station. Mr Bennett, a mining engineer, has been arrested on charges of transporting stolen gold and silver coins during his last trip with his new wife around the Bahamas.
He told investigators he was asleep when their boat struck something in the Florida Straits and began taking on water. He said he rushed above deck but could not find his wife, before gathering his personal belongings, deploying a life raft and abandoned the sinking vessel, according to the criminal complaint.
He was found by a US Coast Guard helicopter at about 3am on May 15.
Court documents say he was found with a suitcase and two backpacks. He opted to take only one backpack with him when he was helped out of the raft to safety. “The US Coast Guard rescue swimmer stated that his backpack was unusually heavy,” reads the complaint.
The contents of the life raft were later recovered and included nine plastic tubes of silver coins, it adds.
The tubes contained 158 English “Year of the Horse” 1oze silver coins and 77 Canadian Maple Leaf coins, worth about £3,200, according to current market value.
Officers returned the coins to Mr Mr Bennett a week later “before they realised, on the same day, that they may have been stolen in 2016”, reads the court document. About a year earlier, Mr Bennett had reported a collection of gold and silver coins stolen from a boat, the Kitty R, on which he served as a crew member, while it was moored in St Maarten, a territory in the Dutch Antilles.
They belonged to the boat’s owner, he told police. “The victim estimated that the value of the stolen coins was approximately $100,000 (£77,000),” the complaint reads.
The owner later told investigators the coins were stored in plastic tubes and were the same ones recovered from Mr Bennett’s life raft.
The body of Ms Hellman has never been found. The Coast Guard called off the search after three days, listing her as missing at sea. Mr Bennett, a dual British and Australian citizen from Dorset, said he was devastated.
“She is my soulmate,” he said in an interview. “I thought we were going to be together forever.” His in-laws believe he has not told the whole story, saying they are suspicious of his reactions after his wife went missing.
‘The US Coast Guard rescue swimmer stated that his backpack was unusually heavy’