Treasure Hunter Jailed over Gold coins (WSJ)

[dualstow]

Tommy Thompson claims memory loss on the location of some of the loot from an 1850s shipwreck

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-treasure- ... 1483111248

Why don't I trust this guy? ;-)

[I Shrugged]

There is a paywall on that story, DS. Can you provide a quick overview?

[dualstow]

There is a paywall on that story, DS. Can you provide a quick overview?

Sorry about that.
If you google the headline you can probably get through.

[boglerdude]

Tommy Thompson, a brilliant research scientist and treasure hunter, is spending the holidays in an Ohio jail cell for a second year as he continues to rack up fines of $1,000 a day.

All he has to do to stop the fines and begin working his way to freedom: Give up details that will help his former investors locate a cache of missing gold coins that were minted from Gold Rush-era ingots he found in a famous wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean nearly three decades ago.

Mr. Thompson, 63 years old, claims that he suffers from a rare autoimmune disease that impairs his memory. But the judge overseeing the civil and criminal contempt cases against him has questioned that excuse.

“He can remember that he developed a patent for a submarine, but he can’t remember where he hid or where he placed or where he last saw the loot,” said Judge Algenon L. Marbley at a hearing in his Columbus, Ohio, courtroom in December 2015.

Judge Marbley then ordered Mr. Thompson to remain in prison and pay a daily fine until he agrees to provide information about 500 commemorative coins to lawyers for the investors who backed his 1988 discovery of the S.S. Central America. The judge separately sentenced Mr. Thompson to two years in prison for fleeing from a court-ordered hearing in 2012.

A California company Mr. Thompson hired to market the treasure stamped the coins in 2001 from gold salvaged from the wreck, and they were said to be given to one of the companies he once headed.

In the past year, Mr. Thompson failed several times to give details about the coins’ whereabouts. But he was recently able to review personal documents that he said could refresh his memory. Earlier this month, the judge ordered him to sit for another deposition within the next month.

But whether Mr. Thompson will offer any clues about the coins or other assets remains about as murky as the deep ocean he once explored.

“I can’t speak at this point as to what will happen or won’t happen at that further deposition,” said his current attorney, Todd Long. “That’s what everyone is waiting to see.”

At one time, Mr. Thompson worked for Battelle, a nonprofit R&D organization in Columbus, and he has said he designed missile systems for submarines. He became focused on locating the S.S. Central America, which sank off the coast of the Carolinas in a hurricane in 1857. In 1988, he led a team using a remote-operated vehicle and found the ship at an underwater depth of more than a mile.

The feat was hailed around the world, and the treasure—more than 7,500 gold coins, 532 gold ingots, jewelry, Derringer pistols—promised to enrich Mr. Thompson and others involved in the endeavor.

But that dream unraveled for many.

Gold and other artifacts were sold for about $50 million, but none of his roughly 120 investors, including the Dispatch Printing Co. and private individuals, who collectively invested $23 million, received any money. Several sued Mr. Thompson, and in 2012, rather than show up to a court appearance, Mr. Thompson became a fugitive.

He was caught in January 2015, at a hotel in Boca Raton, Fla., with his girlfriend, $425,000 in cash and identification cards under three different names.

“I’m frustrated at how much attention is showered on him, when I think the real story is the treasure,” said Bob Evans, a scientist and historian who met Mr. Thompson in 1978 and was intimately involved in the salvage project and the restoration and sale of the treasure.

Mr. Evans said the artifacts provide a rare window onto the Gold Rush era, when steamships carried gold, mail and wealthy passengers from San Francisco to Panama, and, after a rail crossing over land, from Panama to New York.

The S.S. Central America was considered one of the greatest lost treasures in U.S. history, he said. The loss of so much currency helped spark a financial panic. Some 425 people lost their lives, while 153 passengers, mostly women and children, were rescued.

[dualstow]

heheh, well technically, we are not supposed to reproduce more than a single paragraph, but not the end of the world.

If anyone gets through the paywall by googling, let me know. There's a Snowden article, also from the WSJ, that I'd love to reference in the Off Topic §.

[dualstow]

Excellent, thank you!