COLUMBUS, Ohio — A former treasure hunter, Tommy Thompson, who has spent close to ten years in prison for not revealing the location of missing gold coins, saw a shift in his legal situation as a federal judge in Ohio decided to conclude his civil contempt sentence. Nonetheless, Thompson will continue to serve time due to a separate criminal contempt sentence imposed on him.
U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley declared on Friday that he no longer believed further imprisonment would compel Thompson to comply with court orders regarding the whereabouts of the gold coins. However, he also mandated that Thompson begin serving a two-year sentence connected to a criminal contempt ruling, which had previously been postponed while he faced the civil contempt charges.
Since December 15, 2015, Thompson has been in contempt of court, also accruing a hefty daily fine of $1,000 during that period. The judge assessed Thompson’s total penalties for civil contempt to be $3,335,000, a staggering amount reflective of the prolonged nature of his noncompliance.
The origins of Thompson’s case trace back to his 1988 discovery of the S.S. Central America, famously referred to as the “Ship of Gold.” This ship, which sank during a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina in 1857, was carrying thousands of pounds of gold, an event that significantly contributed to an economic crisis.
Thompson’s refusal to cooperate has persisted despite an investor lawsuit and directives from federal court aimed at recovering 500 coins made from the ship’s valuable cargo. According to court documents, he has previously claimed—without disclosing specifics—that the coins, estimated to be worth around $2.5 million, were entrusted to a trust based in Belize.
After failing to show up for a court hearing in Ohio regarding the coins in 2012, Thompson was located by U.S. marshals in Florida in 2015 and subsequently arrested. In April of that year, he pled guilty to the charges related to his absence and received the two-year prison sentence.
Although federal law typically limits contempt of court sentences to 18 months, a federal appeals court ruled in 2019 that this limitation did not apply to Thompson, concluding that his continued refusal to comply violated the terms of his plea agreement.
