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.
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...
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-...
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.
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.
https://apnews.com/article/tommy-thompson-gold-coins-shipwre...
Such systems must be built in a way that allow to correct errors, because it's well known that errors are made.
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?
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?
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
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?
If you dont hate whats requested, how do you get out any time you want?
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.
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.
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.
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.
In any case, probably not a romantic explorer figure as the clickbaity title suggests.
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."
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.
> 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?
Thompson himself published a coffee table book about the find, "America's Lost Treasure."
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
> 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.
But the kind of person who thinks that way never becomes a treasure hunter in the first place.
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.
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.
>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."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.