After being accused of cheating his investors out of
their share of one of the richest hauls in U.S. history --
$50 million in gold bars and coins from a 19th-century
shipwreck -- and spending more than two years on the
lam, Tommy Thompson was captured by Federal marshals
last month at a Hilton hotel in West Boca Raton,
using cash to stay under the radar. The U.S. Marshals
Service called him "one of the most intelligent fugitives
ever sought" by the agency.
Thompson, 62, made history in 1988 when he discovered
the sunken SS Central America, also known as the
"Ship of Gold." The side-wheel steamer went down in a
hurricane about 200 miles off South Carolina in 1857; 425
people drowned and tons of gold from the California
Gold Rush was lost. In a modern-day technological
feat, Thompson and his crew brought up thousands of
bars and coins, and in 2000, he sold much of them to a
gold marketing group for about $50 million. But the 161 investors who paid Thompson $12.7 million to find the
ship never saw the proceeds. Two of them sued -- one
was the company that publishes the Columbus Dispatch
newspaper in Ohio, and had invested about $1 million.
A warrant was issued in Columbus in 2012 after
Thompson failed to show up for a hearing on the lawsuit.
Thompson vanished from his mansion in Vero
Beach, FL, where a search found prepaid disposable cellphones
and bank wraps for $10,000 in cash, along with
a book titled How to Live Your Life Invisible, according to
court records. One marked page was titled, "Live your
life on a cash-only basis."
Thompson was arrested on January 28, along with
his longtime companion, Alison Antekeier. The pair had
been paying cash for a room at the Hilton, rented under
a fake name used by Antekeier. They had no vehicles
registered in their names, and Antekeier used buses
and taxis to get around. The couple made initial court
appearances in West Palm Beach, but authorities will
seek to return Thompson to Ohio.