Spending a decade in jail at age 60+ is a hell of a price to pay for a few millions. I'm tempted to believe he doesn't actually know where the coins are. If that's the case, he just spent 10+ years in a cage because a judge didn't believe him....
10 years for refusing to to say where he found gold is wild. people who committed fraud against elderly people and child molesters often get sentenced for less than that.
> 10 years for refusing to to say where he found gold is wild.
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.
Yeah it's a sad consequence but... He effectively stole from others, why are people shocked? And yes contempt charges shouldn't go this long, but that's a separate qualm than "should he be criminally charged at all".
According to the article, the lawsuit said the coins were worth up to $400m. That's more than a "few" millions, it's $40m per year spent in jail. I think the bigger issue for him is that it will be very hard to launder all of that without getting caught.
I don't think there exists an amount of money I'd take in exchange for 10 years in jail, at any point in my life. 10 years is a long time.
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...
You can get decent food, good education, internet access, bike rides and running in Norwegian prisons - you're still there for {X} years (depending on behaviour).
Well, stationary bike riding at least - not all of them have large yards that take a good while to cycle about.
> 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:
I think many people who have children would gladly do 10 year in prison at age 60 if it meant they could leave $400m in their estate. If we pretend for the sake of the argument (unrealistically) that there's no major ethical concern, and that the money can actually be kept afterwards, then I would definitely make that sacrifice for my children. They are more important to me than my own personal comfort.
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.
The nice thing about not being in jail is that you have the freedom to choose where and how you live. Feel free to move into a shack in the middle of the woods away from everyone. Plenty of people live as hermits or shutins because they don't want to deal with people or the demands being a part of a community places on them.
Can I use the 1 trillion dollars to make my jail stay more comfortable? If not, then I'm not interested. What would I do with 1 trillion dollars to offset the missing 10 years?
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 think anyone would. But that’s not the scenario here. The question is: would you spend your last decade in a cell just to have the "satisfaction" of knowing where some gold is buried?
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.
The real story here is that civil contempt can net you an indefinite prison sentence without a conviction, and if you're lucky a judge will decide to let you out. Over something you may or may not even know.
“Federal law generally limits jail time for contempt of court to 18 months. But a federal appeals court in 2019 rejected Thompson’s argument that that law applies to him, saying his refusal violated conditions of a plea agreement.”
Seems sort of like he was held for as long as he'd have been held if he'd been judged guilty of stealing everything he was accused of stealing, and if he wanted to default himself into prison for that stretch without a trial, the judge was content to oblige him.
The problem obviously being that then there is never a trial and no one ever proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was even capable of disclosing the information.
Indefinite imprisonment isn't the only way to solve this. Over here we just have trials without the defendant, and they usually don't end up well for them. Better than indefinite imprisonment, though.
How else could it possibly work? The justice system depends on judges being able to compel action. Within the guardrails established by the system (e.g. no self-incriminating testimony, if you’re in the US), I don’t have a problem with refusal to e.g. turn over evidence just resulting in detention until you comply. It’s not a prison sentence, since you can get out any time you want.
You ask how else could it possibly work. How about charge him with a crime first, then detain him if he's convicted. The idea that you can imprison someone forever without a charge is insane.
You can't resolve criminal liability without compliance to judicial authority. It's not even a meaningful demand. If you don't trust the judiciary you can't trust any other component of the system!
The “system” is comprised of normal people. These normal people are vastly more concerned about furthering their own career,ie “Winning”. No one should trust this system to ever find any real justice. It is a joke.
Then you can charge him with the crime of contempt, and allow that charge to be proven or disproven through actual due process.
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?
No your explicitly not required provide testimony against yourself the fifth amendment should absolutely override any "contempt" bullshit of him being willing to incriminate himself.
Exactly. Seeing as there is no presumption of innocence in the US and the burden of proof is the defendant’s, it makes sense that a judge can put anyone in jail indefinitely without proving anything. If he had died in prison it would have been due process because contempt is meant to be so punitive that it acts as a deterrent to any other person that sets foot in a court room from refusing to be compelled into making self-incriminatory statements.
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
“The only way people can trust the system is if judges can put anybody away indefinitely/permanently without trial” is such a funny idea. That is the premise of Judge Dredd. It’s like saying “Judge Dredd needs to exist”.
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.
That’s not how any of this works. You still have rights when you’re being detained for contempt, you can claim you’re being held arbitrarily for being asked to turn over evidence that doesn’t exist, and an appeals court will decide if that’s true and release you if so. It’s not a magic incantation to hold anyone indefinitely at random.
It seems he pled guilty to missing a hearing and then was held indefinitely on that plea bargain, because the judge wanted him to turn over evidence. I don't know, if this happened as it's reported it seems incredibly close to a magic incantation
The standard federal limit is 18 months. An appeals court said that didn’t apply to him because he was violating a plea agreement that he voluntarily entered into.
> I don’t have a problem with refusal to e.g. turn over evidence just resulting in detention until you comply. It’s not a prison sentence, since you can get out any time you want.
It is if you don't have the item(s) or knowledge being asked for.
> Thompson was held in contempt for refusing to answer questions about the location of about 500 missing gold coins
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.
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.
The is the most totalitarian bullshit I've ever heard on HN.
The fact that you're okay with another human, just because they have a robe, to compel you to do as they ask OR rot away without a conviction is utter madness.
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.
"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."
It's confusing because it looks like he was convicted of both
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.
> The last time I saw this story, I learned that he was actually jailed for defrauding investors. Was that not the case?
> 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.
Fair. My objection may be founded in other framings of this story where it was implied that "spunky explorer did not tell the big bad goverment where the gold was, so they put him in jail."
Honestly, the headline does seem to imply that, no?
It is a fantastic book. The author was a spectator for much of the treasure hunt. The adulation of Thompson is amusing in light of the fact that, 15 years after publication, he was arrested for defrauding his investors.
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.
I wonder if there is a statute of limitations on suing an estate.
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.
Yes, I think so too. It's the only worthwhile reason to commit this crime, surely. You'd be relying on the claimants abandoning their claim at some point because surely the statute of limitations doesn't just apply because you were particularly good at hiding something. Realistically, they'd have to sell this to a collector many years later for much less than what they're worth (since they can't be sold on with proper provenance tracking).
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.
> "Is there any obligation to turn over treasure you find yourself?"
There is, in some places.
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"
The UK Merchant Shipping Act (applies to recovery from wrecks):
"all wreck material recovered in UK territorial waters or brought into the UK must be reported to the Receiver of Wreck within 28 days."
The USA Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987, grants states title to wrecks in their waters.
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."
Their point is that quoting chatgpt is a bad comment.
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.
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