An Ohio treasure hunter once jailed for refusing to reveal the location of recovered shipwreck gold has been released from prison after nearly a decade behind bars.
Thomas Thompson, 73, was imprisoned in 2015 for contempt of court after declining to tell a federal judge, investors, or his own attorneys where a collection of gold coins and bars from the historic S.S. Central America had been stored.
The steamship - often called the “Ship of Gold” - sank during a hurricane in 1857 while transporting massive quantities of California Gold Rush treasure. Thompson famously located the wreck in 1988 during an expedition funded by roughly 160 investors, many from Ohio.
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| Tommy Thompson in 1988 |
The total value of the recovered gold was estimated at $100-150 million. A recovered gold ingot weighing 80 pounds sold for a record $8 million and was recognized as the most valuable piece of currency in the world at that time.
Legal battles followed years later when investors sued in 2005, claiming Thompson sold about $50 million worth of gold without properly compensating them. Thompson maintained that some assets were placed in a Belize-based trust and said he did not know the current location of the remaining treasure.
I mean, it's reasonable. I misplace stuff all the time.
Alongside his prison sentence, Thompson accumulated steep penalties, including a $1,000 daily contempt fine for each day he served in prison and more than $3.5 million in financial judgments.
He's going to be under a lot of pressure to pay that back. Maybe he can find an investor that will offer a loan, or better yet have a miraculous memory surge and remember where he hid the treasure.
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