Treasure hunter freed from jail after refusing to turn over shipwreck gold
bbc.com
bbc.com
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.
Inmates would start threatening and exporting him as soon as they learned of this and might even continue after he is out.
There is a reason I can tell. (Hint: It might be something to do with the prison system).
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...
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.
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.
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.
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-...
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.
Kept apart from society? And no one will be bothering me? Sounds like heaven.
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.
Which means you can have a bigger positive impact on their lives by being present than by giving them money.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
The ongoing refusal to answer questions under oath is.
He could have agreed to talk anytime and been released shortly.
It's a civil proceeding not a criminal proceeding so he would not be incriminating himself.
He could argue that by answering he would be admitting crimes and opening himself to criminal liability. But there's a possibly they give him immunity and that route is taken away.
“On my life, I will not part with a single coin.”
I'm not disagreeing with the idea, but we need some evidence.
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.
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.
By and large, the US system is very good in that respect. If that kind of stuff doesn't happen, people won't use the system and it will collapse.
Bernie Madoff got 150 years in prison for his Ponzi scheme.
All three of those guys are the very definition of wealthy and powerful, and there are endless other, albeit smaller, examples.
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.
It seems more plausible to me he actually doesn't have the gold.
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.
And I don't think it's a good idea to hand family members never-work money. Their own achievements become meaningless.
Their own achievements become meaningless.
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.
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.
Which correlates strongly with ‘success’ in any system where there is a clear metric for success, which is certainly true for our current economic system eh? If there was a system they wanted to compete in where the metric was ‘happiness’ measured by some concrete metric, I bet those same people would be as aggressively ‘happy’ with however it was measured too - and just as actually miserable.
That those people are rarely (if ever) happy is a side effect of those attributes, and a core part of what makes them the way they are.
After all, if they were able to be happy with anything less…. They’d have stopped already? And hence have less/a lower ‘score’ on that particular metric? And probably actually be happier.
Notably, I know plenty of people who are very happy with nothing - dirt poor - and plenty of people who are also miserable with nothing too.
The difference is, it’s a lot less competitive being dirt poor eh?
Otherwise I agree with you it’s not a trade off that is worth it at any point in life
People in this thread seem to think that jail is something like vacation.
Could be that Alaska has (had) particularly great jails?
But if it’s part of a long term gambit, there are ways to make jail time slightly less than a complete write-off.
This is kind of why I want to make this survey now because there’s no way I’d spend a decade of my life in prison for any amount of money. I would do six months for $3M. I’d maybe do 12 for $10M. But beyond that…I don’t know, even a year seems like too long to be behind bars.
You're saying that making money is the sole criteria for "meaningful achievement"?
But imagine if they were fabulously wealthy. Sure, they could set themselves a budget, but even for them that would feel... contrived. The whole thing would feel like LARPing as someone without so much money. So that sense of accomplishment is going to be out of reach, even assuming they didn't just buy a brand new boat.
Most people come out of prison in WAY better shape than they went in
It's not prison, but I know people who spent time in various county jails for weeks to months, and all of them definitely came out worse, and did their best to stay as far away as possible from going back (at least as far as I could tell).
You're discounting the risk of inheriting a large sum of money while surrounded by criminals. Getting sudden access to that sort of money is dangerous at the best of times. I'd be scared enough outside of prison, let alone in the presence of organized crime.
Why are you so sure you'd be left alone?
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.
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.
The idea that money will cure all life's ailments and screwups and bring happiness is an idea of a clueless poor man. At that age, priorities are normally elsewhere since everybody feel like they don't know the day and hour when something bad happens.
10 years is nothing compared to 400m
Ever spent even a week in county lockup?
I can assure you more than a billion people gladly would...
You just reminded me of this old internet horror story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h-cAbOyRXc
For one, to convict him, they’d need to prove the coins existed (actually) and they were plausibly worth that much. Not a straightforward thing if you have no idea where they are, eh?
It is if you don't have the item(s) or knowledge being asked for.
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.
Do not make me laugh. What evidence? Persons can and do forget most obvious things.
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?
Hmm, not sure if that's adequate, civil court is usually balance, and that's because it doesn't deprive someone of their liberty. Criminal court is beyond a reasonable doubt, because of the seriousness of the consequences
If you dont hate whats requested, how do you get out any time you want?
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?
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
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.
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?
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?
There are no valid fiat decrees. Everything must be somehow defensible.
The crime is not simply failing to do what a judge said. Even judges are not gods. The crime is failing to do something that they had the power to do, and that the judge or the state had the right to demand. And both of those are as arguable as anything else.
Such systems must be built in a way that allow to correct errors, because it's well known that errors are made.
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.
They could just demand someone turn over evidence that doesn't exist, or that they know the person doesn't know about?
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.
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.
https://apnews.com/article/tommy-thompson-gold-coins-shipwre...
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?
The system has a lot of problems for the number of “criminals” we arrest.
I don’t see any evidence he ever attempted to make that claim.
A core way to appeal a civil contempt is on the grounds that you cannot comply.
Then the human beings involved have to assess whether or not the claim has merit.
It would seem insane to sit in jail for 10 years without even attempting to make that claim if he legitimately couldn’t remember where he stashed an actual treasure trove. And yet, as far as I can see he did not even make the attempt.
Based on that, it looks pretty clearly like he knew where the treasure was, he knew they knew where it was, and he was willing to sit in jail rather than give it up.
How would you propose to prove that you can't remember something?
Courts determine things that can’t be absolutely proven every day, by a variety of different standards.
You’re likely most familiar with “beyond a reasonable doubt”, but in other contexts the standard is a preponderance of evidence.
Not that it matters because he and his lawyers appear to have never attempted to make the claim.
Melt some down, have it remade into other things, and it gains a bit of weight here and there.
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.
I’d say it’s almost expected that someone in that position would skim off the top in this way. The problem is he stole it all and that’s obviously going to raise questions.
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.
In any case, probably not a romantic explorer figure as the clickbaity title suggests.
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.
Thompson himself published a coffee table book about the find, "America's Lost Treasure."
> 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.
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.
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.
But the kind of person who thinks that way never becomes a treasure hunter in the first place.
Was that not the case? If it is, is the BBC in the unavoidable click-bait game now?
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."
> 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.
Honestly, the headline does seem to imply that, no?
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.
>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.
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
>Tommy Thompson, 73
No not _forever_ :)
https://apnews.com/article/tommy-thompson-gold-coins-shipwre...
> 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...
> "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."