Thommy Thompson, the deep-sea treasure hunter known for finding the S.S. Central America in 1988, was released from prison last Wednesday, according to federal Bureau of Prisons records reviewed by The Associated Press. Thompson had been incarcerated for years after refusing to disclose information sought by a federal court in connection with missing gold tied to the shipwreck.
The Central America sank in 1857 during a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina, and the vessel’s cargo included gold associated with the California Gold Rush. After the wreck was discovered, Thompson was widely credited for uncovering thousands of pounds of sunken treasure that had rested on the Atlantic Ocean floor for more than 150 years.
Thompson’s legal troubles began after disputes emerged over how proceeds from treasure recovered from the ship were handled. In 2005, investors sued Thompson, saying they had not received money they were owed from a $50 million sale tied to more than 500 gold bars and thousands of coins, which the plaintiffs described as part of the ship’s booty.
Thompson, who had been living in Florida, later went into seclusion and became a fugitive after an Ohio federal judge issued a warrant for his arrest in 2012 when he failed to appear in court. Authorities tracked him to a Florida hotel three years later, and the judge held him in contempt for refusing to answer questions about the location of missing coins, resulting in a prison sentence at the end of 2015.
In court, Thompson maintained that the coins were turned over to a trust in Belize, and he said that proceeds from the sale of a first batch of gold mostly went toward legal fees and bank loans. But the dispute did not end with the contempt finding, and Thompson continued to challenge whether he could be held for long periods of time for refusing to provide answers.
The federal appeals court in 2019 rejected Thompson’s argument that limitations on jail time for contempt of court applied to him, saying his refusal violated conditions of a plea agreement. The following year, he appeared by video for another hearing, when U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley again asked whether he was ready to address the whereabouts of the gold.
Thompson responded that he did not know the coins’ location, telling the judge: “Your honor, I don’t know if we’ve gone over this road before or not, but I don’t know the whereabouts of the gold,” and adding, “I feel like I don’t have the keys to my freedom.” The court later agreed to end Thompson’s civil-contempt sentence, concluding it was no longer convinced that keeping him in prison would produce an answer, and it ordered him to begin serving a separate two-year sentence tied to his failure to attend the 2012 court hearing.
After Thompson’s release, Dwight Manley, a California coin dealer who bought and sold much of the fortune, said Thompson paid what he described as a heavy price over what he characterized as a business dispute. Manley said, “Going to prison for 10 years over a business dispute is not America,” adding, “People kill people and get out in half the time.”
Ryan Scott, a University of Florida law professor who researches contempt law and helped secure Thompson’s release, said sentences in civil-contempt cases can be indefinite but should not last indefinitely. Scott said Thompson’s incarceration was “very unusual” and that he should have been freed years earlier, citing at least the time since 2018 when he said the underlying case was dismissed.
Thompson, 73, had been released after the prolonged litigation and confinement centered on the whereabouts of 500 gold coins, an issue that lingered through years of hearings and appeals as the court sought answers from a man it said remained unwilling to provide them.