A former deep -waters -watership hunter who has turned almost a decade in jail for refusing to reveal the whereabouts of Missing gold coins That term has ended by a federal judge in Ohio, but will remain behind bars for now.
American District Judge Algenon Marbley agreed on Friday to finish Tommy Thompson’s prayer On the position of civil contempt, saying that “he is no longer convinced that it is likely that greater imprisonment obliges compliance.” However, he also ordered that the investigating scientist immediately begin to comply with a two -year sentence that he received for a related criminal contempt position, a term that was delayed when the term of civil contempt was imposed.
Thompson has been kept in contempt of the court Since December 15, 2015, and also incurred a daily fine of $ 1,000. In his ruling, Marbley evaluated the fine of total civil contempt at $ 3,335,000.
Thompson case dates from its discovery of the SS Central America, known as the Golden Bar The ship sank in September 1857Together with 425 passengers and crew members and 30,000 federal gold pounds from the new San Francisco mint to create a reserve for banks in the east of the United States, the ship was located by Thompson and its team more than 7,000 feet under the surface.
AP Photo/The Columbus Dispatch, Lon Horwedel
Despite a lawsuit for investors and a federal court order, Thompson will still not cooperate with the authorities trying to find 500 acted coins of some of the gold, according to judicial records. He said, without providing details, that the coins, valued at around $ 2.5 million, were delivered to a Trust in Belize.
After a federal judge ordered Thompson in 2012 to appear before the court to reveal the whereabouts of the coins, Thompson fled to Florida, where he lived with his former partner in a hotel where he lived near Boca Mouse. The United States sheriffs traced him and arrested him In early 2015.
He declared himself guilty in April 2015 to omit that hearing and received the two -year prison sentence.
Federal law generally limits jail time for contempt of the court to 18 months. But a Federal Court of Appeals in 2019 rejected Thompson’s argument that this law applies to him, saying that his rejection violated the conditions of a guilt agreement.
In 2022, one of the largest Central America ss ever offered at an auction, a finding of 866.19 ounces known as a JustTh & Hunter, sold for $ 2.16 million through heritage auctions based in Dallas.
“Since the bars of JustTh & Hunter recovered from the SS Central America number 86 ingots of different sizes, their experience and integrity classified them among the most reliable and well -managed test establishments of the transcendental era of the Era of Gold.” Heritage auctions..
The Treasury of the Central America has obtained millions of dollars over the years. In 2019Multiple wreck relics obtained more than $ 11 in an auction. In 2001An 80 pound ingot was bought by a private collector for a record of $ 8 million.
California gold marketing group through AP
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