A former deep-sea treasure hunter who spent nearly a decade in prison for refusing to reveal the location of missing gold coins from a historic shipwreck has been released, according to federal records.
Tommy Thompson, now 73, was freed last week after years behind bars tied to a long-running legal dispute over treasure recovered from the SS Central America.
Thompson gained worldwide attention in 1988 when he discovered the wreck of the SS Central America off the coast of South Carolina. The ship, which sank during a hurricane in 1857 while carrying gold from the California Gold Rush, held thousands of pounds of treasure. The disaster killed 425 people and contributed to a major economic panic.
However, Thompson later became embroiled in lawsuits with investors who claimed they had not received proceeds from the sale of part of the recovered treasure. In 2005, investors sued him, saying they had not seen any of the roughly $50 million earned from selling hundreds of gold bars and thousands of coins.
Thompson disappeared and became a fugitive after failing to appear in court in 2012. Authorities eventually tracked him to a hotel in Florida in 2015, where he was arrested.
A federal judge jailed him for contempt of court after he refused to disclose the location of about 500 gold coins believed to be worth around $2.5 million. Thompson insisted the coins had been placed in a trust in Belize and maintained that he did not know their current whereabouts.
Algenon Marbley eventually ruled that continued imprisonment was unlikely to force Thompson to reveal new information and ended the civil contempt sentence. Thompson then served a separate two-year sentence related to skipping the 2012 court hearing. before his release.
Coin dealer Dwight Manley, who handled much of the treasure’s sale, said Thompson paid a steep price over what he described as a business dispute. Legal experts also noted that spending roughly 10 years in prison for civil contempt is highly unusual.
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