Treasure hunter freed from jail after refusing to turn over shipwreck gold
bbc.com141 points by tartoran 14 hours ago
141 points by tartoran 14 hours ago
He's an idiot. He pulled off one of the most incredible stunts I've ever seen. Not only does was he able to find and extract the gold over a mile down, which is incredible, he was also able to rally over 100 investors and raise capital. Ironically this is basically how capital markets originated, from shipping ventures not unlike this one.
He should have given the investors their money, taken his performance fee, and not spend up to half of his remaining lifespan (and probably around 3/4 of his remaining health span).
On the other hand, if he has grandkids and he manages to give them say 100mm instead of 20mm, he may feel it was worth it genetically.
Spending a decade in jail at age 60+ is a hell of a price to pay for a few millions. I'm tempted to believe he doesn't actually know where the coins are. If that's the case, he just spent 10+ years in a cage because a judge didn't believe him....
According to the article, the lawsuit said the coins were worth up to $400m. That's more than a "few" millions, it's $40m per year spent in jail. I think the bigger issue for him is that it will be very hard to launder all of that without getting caught.
Why didn't they just convict him of fraud and fine him the estimated value of the missing coins, rather than trying to convince him to divulge where they were? Now, the guy is out of jail and they still haven't recovered the value of the gold from him. Lose-lose for the plaintiffs and for justice. Why are we so soft on fraud?
At no point in my life would I choose to spend 10 years in jail for $400m. Only if my current living situation was very poor and this was my only way out of it. I can sort of imagine why one would... but it seems like an awful decision to me.
It seems more plausible to me he actually doesn't have the gold.
I would in a heartbeat. $400,000,000 is never-work-again-in-your-life money. Not just for me, but for my parents and other members of my family. You could put it into bonds at a mere 2% APY (far lower than current interest rates) and get 8 million dollars per year in interest for doing nothing.
At 16 waking hours per day, we're losing at least half of that with work, so it would only take 1 additional decade before I break even in terms of time, not even considering the vastly improved quality of life having millions of dollars of annual passive income nets you. I could even afford dram.
I might've done it in my 20s. But now that I'm much later in life the time is far more precious than the money.
And I don't think it's a good idea to hand family members never-work money. Their own achievements become meaningless.
Idk I would rather spend 10 years in jail later in life than in my twenties.
Otherwise I agree with you it’s not a trade off that is worth it at any point in life
I was about to comment that there was no amount of money I would take in return for spending time in prison but then I realized that of course that’s not true. It would be fun to create a survey that would show a visualization of where people tend to fall on the time/money axis for this.
I could have had a whole lot of fun in my thirties and forties with that kind of money. At this point it would just mean iron clad financial security and not much more. Even if I could afford Gabe Newell size yacht I wouldn't buy one.
And meanwhile you can spend that time in jail working on fitness, instead of being addicted to social media and scrolling tik-tok.
If it wasn’t for the Hep C and needing to never drop the soap, it’s almost like an all expenses paid resort? (/s)
"Their own achievements become meaningless."
You're saying that making money is the sole criteria for "meaningful achievement"?
Their own achievements become meaningless.
Of course not. But I used to know a group of guys who were born fabulously wealthy. None of them were happy. For them to get a job it would be essentially working for free relative to the wealth they have.
I'm sure there are people out there who would find meaning in creating art of some type, or turning their fortune into an even bigger fortune, but I suspect those people are rare.
> None of them were happy
That's because they're human, not because they're filthy rich and have all the privileges in the world.
If it were that simple they could give all their money away and get a job at Walmart to find perfect happiness.
The people I know who do not have to work to ensure healthcare for their kids seem happier than the ones who do have to work. Being able to go on vacations for extended durations or at convenient times is also heavily utilized.
I think you are discounting the mental, physical and social toll of being locked up for 10 years. Without autonomy, without privacy, without access to your loved ones (some of whom might die, and the rest will likely have irreparably damaged relationship after), treated as a bad person, surrounded by criminals. It's not "you get 400M for aging 10 years", or for dying ten years younger; I might take those deals. It's spending those 10 years in a prison, and dealing with the consequences of that after.
It's a chance for $400m. Doesn't mean he can get the $400m, since legally it still isnt his and it still can get seized after he gets out if he ever tries to cash it in,
I think first of all it depends on the jail. It's not like you're just sitting in a room, not living. You're experiencing stuff, and it's prison stuff, and that can be hard to shrug off. How valuable is $8 million if you're too broken to enjoy it?
Second, it depends on if you can keep anybody else who is in jail from knowing that you're sitting on $400 million. Otherwise that info will be beaten out of you long before your sentence ends. Maybe that's OK if it's at the bottom of the sea.
> I would in a heartbeat. $400,000,000 is never-work-again-in-your-life money
I general, as in some rich weirdo like Mr. Beast made that deal and you can have your $400m fair and square at the end? Ok that’s a different scenario to one more plausible here where after 10 years you and your family may never be able a to spend it without being sued or jailed again because it’s disputed.
In theory I am with you on the subject. Assuming that jail does not endanger one's life and mental integrity, one still has good chunk of life ahead and the whole thing is a clean trade-off, no further strings attached. But that is not what happens in real life and suddenly your choice might become very iffy.
I think there'd be a big psychological difference between spend the next 10 years in jail, collect 400 million and you're in jail indefinitely, if you get out you may collect 400 million.
I like that you're all assuming you'd walk out of their alive.
I have more family members who’ve been to prison than college. The mainstream narrative around how dangerous prison is is extremely overblown and limited to a few prisons and generally to those who engage in organized crime
Most people come out of prison in WAY better shape than they went in
Me too. I hate my corporate job. Once I leave jail I'd still have a good chunk of life in front of me.
I'm sure there's an elegant gentleman willing to offer you much more than 400 million in exchange of a bare eternity of imprisonment.
Could it be the sunk cost fallacy? He started out thinking he’d spend a few weeks, then a few months… and before long, he has been in there for years and so he must continue with the lie lest he have wasted years of his life.
you can save hundreds, maybe thousands, from poverty and hunger with that kind of money
10 years is nothing compared to 400m
I would maybe spend one year in prison for 40M$. If I actually had a button in front of me that would — if I pressed it — land me in prison for a year and got me 40M$ when I get out, I still wouldn't do it. But I can see the point there. No way would I spend a second year in prison for another 40M$ after that, not even a year for the remaining 360M$. The subjective value of money does not scale linearly. But then again, people are greedy and like big numbers and other unimportant things and they do give away their valuable time of life for these unimportant things instead of using it for actually valuable things.
>40M$ button
You just reminded me of this old internet horror story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h-cAbOyRXc
Well, if there is anywhere to learn how (and make friends with whom!) he could possibly launder $400m worth of gold coins….
You're really gonna take what the other party to a lawsuit says at face value? They probably took the most expensive "collector coin" and then assumed all the other coins were worth that rather than melt value.
"With a street value of over $10 million dollars, the baggie found on the suspect is expected to vault the police chief to running-mate status for the governor..."
10 years for refusing to to say where he found gold is wild. people who committed fraud against elderly people and child molesters often get sentenced for less than that.
> 10 years for refusing to to say where he found gold is wild.
No, that's not what happened. I'm guessing you saw this news before under a clickbait title.
It's not about where gold was found, it's about where he stashed it later. These are assets that are (or were) in his hands which partially belong to all the investors he defrauded.
Still point stand that fraud is at times punished harsher then rape or child molesting
The fraud isn’t what he’s being punished for.
The ongoing refusal to answer questions under oath is.
He could have agreed to talk anytime and been released shortly.
It sure would be nice if this standard of conduct in court were also upheld for the US federal officials who refuse to answer or straight up bold faced lie in court. But nah, it only ever happens to normal people.
Rape and child molesting is often, unfortunately, hard to prove in a court of law. This case is the opposite.
You are missing the point. When these crimes are proved in court they get lower sentences. The lower conviction rates are unavoidable. The shorter sentences are not.
I remember once reading two bits of news about people given similar sentences. One for copyright infringement, the other for sexual assault of a teenager.
Money is more valuable than people
Well, practically when I tried to buy that yacht with my 10 year old, the threatened me with more jail time… (/s)
I don’t understand why he won’t just share it, that’s Thorin Oakenshield level of crazy to choose jail over that.
“On my life, I will not part with a single coin.”
He defrauded his investors. As much as I find that funny, what he did was a white collar crime that has consequences.
Right.
It’s a mystery to me how on one day on HN you will see “corporate death penalty” discussed and on the next “$400MM white collar crimes should not be punished as much as murdering a single person”.
If this were Apple, Google, or Meta having committed the crime, I think the tenor of the discussion would be very different.
It's almost as if comments on a website called "hacker news" are written by individuals with differing and varying opinions, and not by some nebulous hive-mind that purports to be internally consistent.
Yeah it's a sad consequence but... He effectively stole from others, why are people shocked? And yes contempt charges shouldn't go this long, but that's a separate qualm than "should he be criminally charged at all".
In Germany, financial crimes are often punished much harder than capital crimes too. Tells you where the priorities lie.
Well, you could look at it from the perspective of incentives. The number of people who would commit a financial crime for $LARGE_SUM in exchange for a short stint in prison is much higher than the number of people who would commit rape or murder for the same stint. Most people don’t even want to commit murder or rape. But most people do want money and if you presented them the opportunity to get it in a non violent manner that they could rationalize in any way…well, now you need some heavy disincentives.
That's true in the US as well. It's because that kind of crime undermines faith in the financial system, something it must have to function. People grumble about white collar criminals getting light sentences, but the easiest way to get sent to jail for fifty years is to swindle a bunch of pensioners out of their life's savings.
That is if you do it the stupid way. If you do it the plausibly deniable way, or with sufficient political backing, such as the current US president or one of the US senators from Florida, then nothing happens, except maybe gaining more power.
Always have your conversations in person and have underlings sign documents relating to transactions.
Also, you can systemically steal from future generations with no consequence, as a voter and leader. Promise people today big pensions and retiree healthcare, underfund today by telling actuaries to use unrealistic assumptions, or just straight up ignore funding recommendations, and then let the debt pile up for others to deal with.
>"It's because that kind of crime undermines faith in the financial system"
LOL. The whole system is based on constantly stealing fruits of one's labor by way of inflation and 2 classes of haves and have-nots in regards to real assets. How can regular Joe have faith in it is beyond my comprehension.
Well it's not shocking given your countries history. Both target crimes usually committed by their minority groups.
To be fair, that’s pretty common and the justification is that it’s much more difficult to get caught (and the criminals are usually much smarter and better at not getting caught too).
Where is that justification given?
It's criminology 101. Expected punishment = probability of being caught * severity of punishment.
Seems more like sunk cost fallacy, after 12 months in jail you could be unwilling to give up and tell where the treasure is, because then you would have spent a year in jail for nothing, and then it just gets worse and worse each passing year...
At what age do you believe, 10 years in jail are a better price to pay?
Several people in the comments are focusing too much on the 10 years and on if that’s an acceptable trade-off.
It’s worth pointing out no one knew it would be 10 years, not even the judge. The sentence wasn’t “10 years”, it was “indefinitely until we get an answer”. It just so happens that 10 years is when this judge decided “alright, we’re not going to get an answer, no point in the jail time”.
Younger. The opportunity cost of time scales non-linearly with age. If you're old enough, 10 years can be a life sentence.
If I were asked to give up 10 years of my life I would rather choose to give up the final 10 years than 10 years in the prime of my life.
I think anyone would. But that’s not the scenario here. The question is: would you spend your last decade in a cell just to have the "satisfaction" of knowing where some gold is buried?
If you ask people that would still have 25+ years of life after they're freed, I bet a lot of them would willingly take that trade.
I don't think there exists an amount of money I'd take in exchange for 10 years in jail, at any point in my life. 10 years is a long time.
And sure, it depends on the jail... Can I like go for at least a short bike ride or go running? Can I have my computer and internet and Hacker News? Can I drink my oolongs and pu-erhs? Is the food delicious? But then it's not much of a jail anymore...
> But then it's not much of a jail anymore...
If you aren't free to leave, and you're kept apart from society it's a jail. No one is ever sentenced to "10 years of eating bad food". Our prison system may torture people, it may feed them maggot infested food, it may deny them healthcare or safety, but that's not justice and it's not the punishment they were given, it's just an abuse they're made to suffer because the cruel and the greedy have been able to get away with it.
If we've determined that somebody is too dangerous to live with the rest of our society there's no reason at all that they should have to be miserable or suffer needlessly. It's enough that they are kept away from us so that we're safe from them. Their actions would have required us to take their freedom, but they should be able to make the best of their situation and not be subjected to inhumane treatment or abuse.
If we feel we need to jail people temporarily as a punitive measure it's enough to keep them locked up, separated from their loved ones, and unable to do what they want or go where they want. The only people who'd think losing your freedom isn't a punishment are those who don't value freedom. Most people really do know it's a punishment, but they just want to see people suffer far beyond what their sentence calls for or the law should ever allow.
> If you aren't free to leave, and you're kept apart from society it's a jail.
Kept apart from society? And no one will be bothering me? Sounds like heaven.
The nice thing about not being in jail is that you have the freedom to choose where and how you live. Feel free to move into a shack in the middle of the woods away from everyone. Plenty of people make the choice to live as hermits or shutins because they don't want to deal with other people or the demands being a part of a community places on them.
Well, it’s more that there will be a specific society that you’ll be forced to be a part of. You can try to keep to yourself but you’ll still be living, eating, showering, and so on in rather cramped conditions with many others.
Yes, I know. Does it ever stop? The OP suggested there was a way to be apart from from society. /s
Well, if society feels the need of inflicting this on you, it's a win-win, so why not?
You can get decent food, good education, internet access, bike rides and running in Norwegian prisons - you're still there for {X} years (depending on behaviour).
Well, stationary bike riding at least - not all of them have large yards that take a good while to cycle about.
* https://www.sixnorwegianprisons.com/spaces/rehabilitation.ht...
Some prisons have large field for outdoor activities, like walking together, running, playing football, and skiing and skating in the winter.
> But then it's not much of a (US) jail anymore...
exactly - these are Norwegian gaols. They started out much like US gaols but once it came clear how poorly they performed (wrt good of community rather than pockets of BigBarsCo.) they were overhauled:
* https://www.firststepalliance.org/post/norway-prison-system-...
I think many people who have children would gladly do 10 year in prison at age 60 if it meant they could leave $400m in their estate. If we pretend for the sake of the argument (unrealistically) that there's no major ethical concern, and that the money can actually be kept afterwards, then I would definitely make that sacrifice for my children. They are more important to me than my own personal comfort.
> They are more important to me than my own personal comfort.
Which means you can have a bigger positive impact on their lives by being present than by giving them money.
Maybe, maybe not. At age 60 my kids will be grown up and living their own independent lives. They might even live a long distance from me. There are a lot of variables which might mean I don't see them very frequently anyway. Of course there will still be something lost if they can only visit me in jail for 10 years. But at age 60, I'll statistically only be around for another 20 years anyway and if I'm unlucky, maybe far less than that.
On the other hand, $400m can ensure that for the rest of their lives they and their children and their grandchildren don't have to worry about being able to afford a home, good schools, good healthcare, etc. With future issues such as the rise of AI, global warming, and the erosion of international law, there are many dangers ahead including potential mass disruption to job markets and ability to earn a living. I'd rest easier knowing that I've given my descendants a solid chance of surviving all that, even if it means affecting my relationship with them for 10 years. It's a balance between pros and cons.
I would not assume that giving my kids $400 million would be a net benefit to them.
Now to be fair I might be wrong, since I’ve neither researched this nor given it much thought. Maybe there is research on deca- and centimillionaire heirs that shows positive effects of money on life satisfaction, happiness, health and other life outcomes. However I suspect it works similarly to sheltering kids from adversity, failure and hardship in general: disadvantages them psychologically and leads to more problems down the line.
1 trillion dollars.
Can I use the 1 trillion dollars to make my jail stay more comfortable? If not, then I'm not interested. What would I do with 1 trillion dollars to offset the missing 10 years?
Perhaps if there was a good chance I could prolong my "still healthy" years by 20 years or more, I should take it. But it seems like disappearing for 10 years would break a lot of things. People will die, friends will move on... sounds like a rather bad deal still.
> What would I do with 1 trillion dollars to offset the missing 10 years?
Buy every politician and the media to become the effective ruler of your country, then use your influence to improve the lives of your compatriots, overhaul the entire political system and media to add safeguards to prevent anyone from ever again doing what you did, create a just society and become a beacon of hope to the world.
1 quadrillion dollars.
I'm not sure if I would take it either. I would feel better earning (a fraction of) the money instead of just sitting around for it.
I would not want a quadrillion dollars in the first place, I would first try to reduce it to an amount that I can maintain relatively hassle-free and under-the-radar. But even for that perfect amount, I can't think of an age where I'd want to spent 10 years in prison, no matter how comfortable it is.
Nobody knows how long you will have to live, especially not if you spend 10 years in an average prison. But there is a limited time of being young.
This presumes he knew he would be held that long.
Presuming he holds keys to vast wealth, the calculation would have shifted over time. Especially once he was serving his original sentence again starting a year ago.
Another consideration is that many go to jail longer with no upside once getting released.
Interesting that he really only took about $50M on that original haul - I'm still not entirely sure where that $50M would have went honestly since it doesn't look reasonable that he could have accrued $50M of debt/interest in an operation like that. Probably a good chunk of that was siphoned off and sitting in some offshores.
>In 2014, a secondary recovery operation was launched by Odyssey Marine Exploration under court supervision to get the rest of the treasure Thompson left behind.
Chief Judge Rebecca Beach Smith issued a ruling in August 2016 awarding the title of the newly recovered items to the salvors (of the original insurance company that paid out for the wreck). Operational reports and inventories were officially filed with the court.
The court inventory for this second trip alone included 15,500 gold and silver coins, 45 gold bars, gold dust, and hundreds of 19th-century artifacts. This included a glass-plate photograph of a woman dubbed the "Mona Lisa of the Deep" and what is believed to be the world's oldest known pair of miner's work jeans.
How did he get in this mess? I reckon a complete moron could have stolen 10% of the gold without getting caught. Just count and log less than you found. Drop it overboard with a GPS pin on your way back to port. Get it next year.
Yeah I had the same thought - I feel like either there was nowhere near as much gold as was touted or he was obnoxiously greedy/stupid.
To your other point it wouldn’t be too hard to sell 10% of the gold to dealers with the proceeds /paperwork unaccounted for / off the books.
How do you sell it?
Well you use your real share to generate a complex series of investments to make it very hard to judge your wealth. In it you begin trading gold legitimately, not gold markets but buying and selling real gold. The stuff off the boat gets mixed in over the years. Buy some shipwreck gold! Collect gold coins personally! Buy and sell collectables
Melt some down, have it remade into other things, and it gains a bit of weight here and there.
I mean it is pretty easy to sell gold, especially if you sell it below spot price or melt it. If someone offered me gold at a 10% discount, I would immediately buy it and go sell it at whatever gold dealer for an easy profit. Im sure most gold dealers would do the same thing even if it was obviously stolen spanish gold or something.
If you wanted some sort of legal paper trail to fall back on you can spend a bit of money on a few machines and rights to a gold claim in Alaska, dig some random holes for a few months, then claim you struck it rich.
The real story here is that civil contempt can net you an indefinite prison sentence without a conviction, and if you're lucky a judge will decide to let you out. Over something you may or may not even know.
“Federal law generally limits jail time for contempt of court to 18 months. But a federal appeals court in 2019 rejected Thompson’s argument that that law applies to him, saying his refusal violated conditions of a plea agreement.”
https://apnews.com/article/tommy-thompson-gold-coins-shipwre...
18 months is long enough to bankrupt someone and ruin their life. What a shame. No one should have that kind of power.
This is a tough one for me.
This guy took millions of dollars in people's private investment. Found the treasure, hid the treasure, and then refused to comply with a court order to make the investors whole.
What should the punishment for this be?
I'm saying that a judge having the power to do that to anyone is wrong. I'm not talking about this particular case.
How else could it possibly work? The justice system depends on judges being able to compel action. Within the guardrails established by the system (e.g. no self-incriminating testimony, if you’re in the US), I don’t have a problem with refusal to e.g. turn over evidence just resulting in detention until you comply. It’s not a prison sentence, since you can get out any time you want.
You ask how else could it possibly work. How about charge him with a crime first, then detain him if he's convicted. The idea that you can imprison someone forever without a charge is insane.
You can't resolve criminal liability without compliance to judicial authority. It's not even a meaningful demand. If you don't trust the judiciary you can't trust any other component of the system!
What happens when you are not guilty and/or not in posession of whatever you are supposed to hand over?
Such systems must be built in a way that allow to correct errors, because it's well known that errors are made.
The “system” is comprised of normal people. These normal people are vastly more concerned about furthering their own career,ie “Winning”. No one should trust this system to ever find any real justice. It is a joke.
Then you can charge him with the crime of contempt, and allow that charge to be proven or disproven through actual due process.
There is no such thing as a valid reason to skip the part where you have to prove guilt. Even for a judge. Frankly especially for a judge. Everyone else has the excuse that they aren't lawyers. What's a judges excuse?
Per a different article, he pled guilty to the contempt charge: https://apnews.com/article/tommy-thompson-gold-coins-shipwre...
You can't prove or disprove anything with someone who refuses to comply with the courts. This is due process.
No your explicitly not required provide testimony against yourself the fifth amendment should absolutely override any "contempt" bullshit of him being willing to incriminate himself.
> You can't prove or disprove anything with someone who refuses to comply with the courts.
I don't understand how someone could even think this.
Suppose he stole the loot and refuses to say where it is, but he really put it in a bank safe deposit box. The bank teller remembers him coming into the bank with a big pile of loot and then leaving without it, so you use the teller's statement to get a warrant to search the box, get the camera footage from the bank, etc. There are many ways to prove something without the suspect's cooperation.
How is the alternative supposed to work? The judge tells you to answer a question you'd only know the answer to if you were actually guilty and then you stay in jail for as long as you don't answer it? What are you supposed to do if you're innocent?
> You can't prove or disprove anything with someone who refuses to comply with the courts.
Huge citation needed.
Also all you would have to prove is that they're refusing to comply. How disobedient can they really get without proof existing?
Exactly. Seeing as there is no presumption of innocence in the US and the burden of proof is the defendant’s, it makes sense that a judge can put anyone in jail indefinitely without proving anything. If he had died in prison it would have been due process because contempt is meant to be so punitive that it acts as a deterrent to any other person that sets foot in a court room from refusing to be compelled into making self-incriminatory statements.
Now obviously this entire line of reasoning would be completely nullified if there were examples to the contrary or if any of the things mentioned had been adjudicated before but
> Seeing as there is no presumption of innocence in the US
Wait, what? Have you served on a criminal jury in the US? There most definitely is a presumption of innocence, and the judge will remind the jury of this multiple times in the course of the trial.
The burden is on the prosecution (I.e. the state) to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Source: jury duty.
“The only way people can trust the system is if judges can put anybody away indefinitely/permanently without trial” is such a funny idea. That is the premise of Judge Dredd. It’s like saying “Judge Dredd needs to exist”.
I am not a law genius but it seems like in real life since judges can charge plaintiffs, defendants, lawyers, and witnesses with contempt the whole “infinity jail is on the table for every person in the room” thing would make people less likely to want to engage with the civil or criminal justice systems.
Total BS. You can do anything. We have politicians to create meaningful laws. What we have instead in this case is a fucking faschists.
They charged him with contempt of court, which is a crime, after 3 years where he'd been avoiding demands to appear in court.
Doesn't this give the government the unchecked ability to detain whoever they want indefinitely, then?
They could just demand someone turn over evidence that doesn't exist, or that they know the person doesn't know about?
That’s not how any of this works. You still have rights when you’re being detained for contempt, you can claim you’re being held arbitrarily for being asked to turn over evidence that doesn’t exist, and an appeals court will decide if that’s true and release you if so. It’s not a magic incantation to hold anyone indefinitely at random.
It seems he pled guilty to missing a hearing and then was held indefinitely on that plea bargain, because the judge wanted him to turn over evidence. I don't know, if this happened as it's reported it seems incredibly close to a magic incantation
Isn’t that exactly what this article is about? A guy that was released from jail on contempt because it can’t be used indefinitely?
After a decade.
The standard federal limit is 18 months. An appeals court said that didn’t apply to him because he was violating a plea agreement that he voluntarily entered into.
> since you can get out any time you want.
If you dont hate whats requested, how do you get out any time you want?
> I don’t have a problem with refusal to e.g. turn over evidence just resulting in detention until you comply. It’s not a prison sentence, since you can get out any time you want.
It is if you don't have the item(s) or knowledge being asked for.
> Thompson was held in contempt for refusing to answer questions about the location of about 500 missing gold coins
You can claim “I forgot” in response to questioning, and the judge will decide on the balance of evidence whether you appear to be telling the truth. Contra the panicky memes about contempt of court, people aren’t indefinitely detained because they forgot something. But that’s clearly not what happened here.
It's entirely conceivable that he stashed the gold, it was subsequently discovered and stolen by somebody else (any of his relatives might have been in a position to do this, if for instance he stashed it in his home and they had reason to suspect he had done so.) Then, not knowing that the gold is gone he admits that he had it and agrees to turn it over, only to then discover that he cannot. What then is he meant to do?
The "balance of evidence" may say that he once had it, since he did seem to admit it when he agreed to turn it over, but what then? What evidence is there that he's now lying?
Dude I've forgotten computer passwords I've used 4-5 days a week for years; one day it was just gone.
>"the balance of evidence "
Do not make me laugh. What evidence? Persons can and do forget most obvious things.
>"How else could it possibly work?"
Here is the idea - six month in jail for contempt.
> The justice system depends on judges being able to compel action"
It does not. The person gets punished and this should be the end of it. Instead they have Machiavellian twist bypassing all standard checks and bounds.
Daddy they've hurt my ego.
The is the most totalitarian bullshit I've ever heard on HN. The fact that you're okay with another human, just because they have a robe, to compel you to do as they ask OR rot away without a conviction is utter madness.
Imagine if this was the 1500s and the man in the robe was a priest. Would you be okay with that? and if your answer is some form of distinction without a difference argument, I'd urge you to not even reply.
I mean clearly that has to happen otherwise people could just refuse to participate in court hearings and be exempt from laws.
Indefinite imprisonment isn't the only way to solve this. Over here we just have trials without the defendant, and they usually don't end up well for them. Better than indefinite imprisonment, though.
Seems sort of like he was held for as long as he'd have been held if he'd been judged guilty of stealing everything he was accused of stealing, and if he wanted to default himself into prison for that stretch without a trial, the judge was content to oblige him.
The problem obviously being that then there is never a trial and no one ever proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was even capable of disclosing the information.
Did he make the claim that he wasn’t capable when he appealed the contempt ruling?
“Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea” is a book about the treasure hunt, recommended.
It is a fantastic book. The author was a spectator for much of the treasure hunt. The adulation of Thompson is amusing in light of the fact that, 15 years after publication, he was arrested for defrauding his investors.
Thompson himself published a coffee table book about the find, "America's Lost Treasure."
I was about to come recommend this book! I picked it up at a book sale without knowing the story. It is fantastic.
It is a very good book, but the author is enamored with Tommy Thompson. It's a borderline hagiography. And then when you do some independent reading about Tommy, you sort of question the researching skills of the author, Gary Kinder.
Wonder why he was only charged with contempt, rather than defrauding investors?
If a judge says you're in contempt, you'll get charged with contempt immediately - all the people required are present.
To charge him with defrauding investors requires a whole different group of people to get involved.
Additionally, those people need enough evidence to have a chance of conviction. "He refused to answer questions about it" is not actually evidence.
And it carries an indefinite sentence? That's crazy
To be held in contempt indefinitely you must "hold the keys to the jail cell" meaning you can leave at any time if you simply comply with the courts order.
^this. The person described here appears like a crook who pocketed millions and stiffed investors, so why just a contempt charge?
In any case, probably not a romantic explorer figure as the clickbaity title suggests.
The last time I saw this story, I learned that he was actually jailed for defrauding investors.
Was that not the case? If it is, is the BBC in the unavoidable click-bait game now?
Yes mate insane clickbait.
Look at these passages:
"Investors in Thompson's venture accused him of cheating them out of promised proceeds and after years on the run he was jailed in 2015 on a criminal contempt charge.
But last year, the judge agreed to end Thompson's civil contempt sentence, arguing that he was unlikely to ever offer an answer, according to CBS News."
It's confusing because it looks like he was convicted of both
U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley agreed Friday to end Tommy Thompson’s sentence on the civil contempt charge, saying he “no longer is convinced that further incarceration is likely to coerce compliance.” However, he also ordered that the research scientist immediately start serving a two-year sentence he received for a related criminal contempt charge, a term that was delayed when the civil contempt term was imposed.
Man, this is why people with enough "karma" have flagging abilities on this website. Please use it on this story. Pure garbage.
> The last time I saw this story, I learned that he was actually jailed for defrauding investors. Was that not the case?
> Please use it on this story. Pure garbage.
The third sentence of the story is "Investors in Thompson's venture accused him of cheating them out of promised proceeds and after years on the run he was jailed in 2015 on a criminal contempt charge."
You could call the title clickbait, I guess? (It seems reasonable enough to me.) But I don't understand your objection to the story itself. It makes it clear that the case was about defrauding investors.
Fair. My objection may be founded in other framings of this story where it was implied that "spunky explorer did not tell the big bad goverment where the gold was, so they put him in jail."
Honestly, the headline does seem to imply that, no?
Jesus, what a tale
> Investors in Thompson's venture accused him of cheating them out of promised proceeds and after years on the run he was jailed in 2015 on a criminal contempt charge.
> They had been staying in a hotel for two years, paying cash for their room under a false name and using taxis and public transport to avoid detection.
But unless he plans on leaving secret wealth to his children, it scarcely sounds like a win even if he did actually get the $400 million. The investors are likely to watch him closely post-release for any actual accessing of the money. But even otherwise, what a life. Even if you have the $400 m worth of money somewhere, you're still living for years out of a hotel in Boca Raton, FL only going places via taxi and public transport while trying not to leave a paper trail. Then you're in jail for 10 years.
I suppose he can live out his seventies and later, but damn.
The rest of the gold was actually recovered after he was originally sued - the downstream owners of the original insurance company that paid out (they get the rights to the recovery when they settle a loss policy) sued and won rights to the gold - they then hired a larger recovery company that successfully recovered the 95% that was left. Kind of crazy that this guy didn't recover more than 5% and shot himself in the foot by trying to steal $2.5M of coins.
I wonder if there is a statute of limitations on suing an estate.
Let’s say he dies in 5 years. 10 years later his children suddenly clearly become rich and can’t explain how. Clearly it looks like he passed the gold to them somehow.
Could the investors then somehow sue his estate then to get the value of the gold back? Or would it be too late?
For all we know he stole money, but not what they thought. Maybe after his time in hiding there’s only a few thousand left and it’s all largely moot anyway.
He’d be more sympathetic if he hadn’t been hiding and suspiciously paying cash for everything for years.
Living out of hotels in Boca Raton, FL and going places via taxis is a win for at least 90% of the world's population.
Haha, true! But he could have had millions any way. It's not like he was going to live like a p90 person in the world!
Well look at it this way, sure he could have split the money, paid his share of taxes and still had enough left over for a nice house.
But the kind of person who thinks that way never becomes a treasure hunter in the first place.
The thing about gold is, it’s probably quite easy to secretly leave to your heirs.
Yes, I think so too. It's the only worthwhile reason to commit this crime, surely. You'd be relying on the claimants abandoning their claim at some point because surely the statute of limitations doesn't just apply because you were particularly good at hiding something. Realistically, they'd have to sell this to a collector many years later for much less than what they're worth (since they can't be sold on with proper provenance tracking).
It doesn't even seem worth it since the original investors wanted a fraction of the proceeds not all of it. Just seems like a strange choice, but I suppose that's why I'm not an intrepid underwater gold adventurer and this guy is.
I'm surprised he spent a day in jail. People with big money generally have far less trouble with the law, than that.
I'd do 10 years even for 20 mil if that is what it takes to make sure my 2 kids and my wife are set. I won't be able to earn that much in a decade anyway.
Maybe ask your wife and kids first. Chances are they would rather not make that trade (and if they did, then you shouldn’t).
Previously (4+6 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47329627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47372912
But also amusingly Deep-sea treasure hunter jailed for 10 years scores legal win but won't be freed (10 points, 1 year ago, 2 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42923251
Interesting that they stayed in Florida instead of absconding with the coins to where they'd be out of reach.
This is interesting. They really can’t keep you locked forever.
>released from prison after a decade
>Tommy Thompson, 73
No not _forever_ :)
This link said that his contempt violated a plea agreement and that’s why they were able to hold him longer than the standard limit of 18 months.
https://apnews.com/article/tommy-thompson-gold-coins-shipwre...
Which is such bull. His guilty plea was about missing a hearing, and they kept him indefinitely on another accusation
They probably released him because they don't want the secret to die with him and also they probably want to track him via satellite.
This is Thorin having to give away the Lonely Mountain treasure after Smaug's death all over again
From what i have read, he is mostly guilty of defrauding his investors.
So just need to wait them out eh.
Is there any obligation to turn over treasure you find yourself? And why?
There is when you take $12 million from investors:
> A total of 161 investors had given Thompson $12.7m (£9.4m) to find the ship on the understanding that they would see returns on their investment.
Both the criminal and civil contempt arose from his refusal to abide court orders from the civil suit.[1]
[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/treasure-hunter-sentenc...
If investors gave you $12.7 million to fund your expedition, you have an obligation to split the treasure as you promised.
> "Is there any obligation to turn over treasure you find yourself?"
For example, the UK Treasure Act:
"Under the Act, treasure is owned by the Crown"
"The act requires finders of treasure—specifically, gold/silver objects >300 years old, coin hoards, or significant metallic items >200 years old—to report them to a local coroner within 14 days"
"all wreck material recovered in UK territorial waters or brought into the UK must be reported to the Receiver of Wreck within 28 days."
There's also the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which applies to international waters.
"All objects of archaeological and historical nature in [international waters] must be preserved or disposed of for the benefit of mankind, with particular regard to the country of origin, cultural origin, or historical/archaeological origin."[flagged]
Presumably everyone could have asked chatgpt.
Yes, but i gave my first answer myself.
And yes, this was easily google'able too.
Just like how everyone could have googled it. What’s your point?
Their point is that quoting chatgpt is a bad comment.
What's your point? It would be just as bad for someone to google a question and copy the first result snippet verbatim. So you've successfully brought up another bad way to comment.
I'm a scuba-diver and qualified marine archaelogist with a long-standing interest in archaeology and history.
I used Google to find suitable lay-descriptions/citations for the topics I already knew about (UK law on treasure and maritime law on salvage), and to understand more about applicable laws in the USA.
tehlike's neither showed any sort of authority nor did his reference of chatgpt. I would have preferred your comment.
I misread the [flagged] as a reply to my message (and the subsequent comments as responses to a thread I was involved in).
Apologies for the out-of-context comment on this thread.
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