A former-scientist-turned-treasure-hunter was released from prison last week after serving his 10-year sentence for contempt of court for refusing to share the location of missing gold coins.
During his searches, Thomas G. Thompson, 73, discovered the S.S. Central America in 1988 off the South Carolina coast. The steamship went down in 1857, in a hurricane, with 450 passengers and tons of coins, bars and nuggets of California gold worth millions of dollars.
It was known as the Ship of Gold, and since its discovery, insurers and angry investors have wanted to collect their share of the bounty. In 2005, some investors who had backed his efforts sued Mr. Thompson, saying they had yet to receive any money from a $50 million sale of some of the treasure. Mr. Thompson went into seclusion in Florida. In 2012, a judge issued a warrant for his arrest after he failed to show up to court.
Three years later, the authorities tracked him down. The judge held him in contempt and sent Mr. Thompson to prison for refusing to cooperate in the recovery of 500 coins missing from the loot. He has maintained that the gold coins were commemorative coins known as restrikes — melted down from a bar from the ship and pressed using a 19th-century machine from the San Francisco Mint — and part of his share of the payment. He turned the coins over to a trustee in Belize around 2009, and has repeatedly said he has no clue where the coins are.
Mr. Thompson has been fascinated with the deep sea since he was a boy, said his lawyer Keith Golden, who has known him since the 1970s. He wanted to get into deep sea oceanic studies but couldn’t line up the funding, so a friend suggested he turn to treasure hunting to help raise money, Mr. Golden said. Mr. Thompson spent hours deciding which treasure to “go after,” Mr. Golden said.
Mr. Thompson, then at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, a private contractor specializing in science and technology, decided on the S.S. Central America. He persuaded some 250 investors to back his hunt.
“It’s the greatest treasure in American history,” said Dwight Manley, a California coin dealer who bought and sold nearly 93 percent of the available treasure.
Mr. Thompson’s contempt order was terminated in 2024, but he still had to serve the two-year sentence from the initial charge of failing to appear before the judge. Mr. Golden said a processing error caused Mr. Thompson not to receive credit for time served and forced him to stay in prison several months longer than originally intended.
Representative Abraham Hamadeh, Republican of Arizona, advocated Mr. Thompson’s release for nearly a year, according to a statement from Mr. Hamadeh, who became familiar with the case through Mr. Manley.
Mr. Thompson “was imprisoned for over 10 years without proper due process on a civil case,” Mr. Hamadeh said, adding that he believes Mr. Thompson’s “vast experience could be crucial in future deep-sea explorations.”
“I am glad he is finally a free man,” Mr. Hamadeh said.
Mr. Thompson was released on March 4. He faces one year of supervised release and $250,000 in fines.
The Justice Department in the Southern District of Ohio, which had pushed for Mr. Thompson’s continued incarceration, did not comment. Lawyers for the Dispatch Printing Company, the former owners of The Columbus Dispatch who had initially sued Mr. Thompson over collecting part of their investment, did not respond to a request for comment.
“Every last piece of gold dust was accounted for,” Mr. Golden said.
Remy Tumin is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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