“Ship of Gold’s” Thompson’s Contempt Spans 10 Years, Location of Stashed Treasure Still Unknown
By CoinWeek News Staff …..
Treasure Hunter Thomas “Tommy” Thompson has spent the last 10 years in federal custody for civil contempt of court after failing to divulge the location of 500 coins that were struck from gold recovered from the shipwreck of SS Central America–the famous “Ship of Gold“, a 19th-century steamer lost at sea off the Carolina coast on September 12, 1857. The 72-year-old remains in federal custody as Judge Algenon L. Marbley drops the contempt charges and orders Thompson to begin serving a two-year criminal sentence.
The civil contempt charge came after Thompson’s 2015 arrest and subsequent plea offering. When Thompson refused to provide information on the whereabouts of the missing gold, Judge Marbley remanded Thompson into Federal custody and levied a $1,000 fine for every day that Thompson refused to give up information that would lead to the recovery of the missing gold. Thompson did not relent.
On Friday, January 31, Marbley had seen enough and ordered the contempt charges dropped, saying he is “no longer…convinced that further incarceration is likely to coerce compliance.” The move marks a rare win for Thompson, who has been enmeshed in legal trouble since his successful recovery of millions of dollars of gold coins and ingots from the Atlantic seabed.
As for the missing gold, Thompson insists that the coins–valued today at over $2 million–were turned over to a trust in Belize. He has not been forthcoming with any other details. The coins were the subject of an investor lawsuit dating back more than 20 years.
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Sources
Gold treasure hunter to serve additional time in jail as his sentence ends
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