Deep-Sea Explorer Tommy Thompson Released After Decade in Prison

Tommy Thompson, the renowned deep-sea explorer who discovered a legendary shipwreck laden with Gold Rush-era treasure, was released from federal prison in early March 2026 after more than a decade of incarceration for refusing to disclose the location of 500 missing gold coins.

Thompson, now 73, had been held in civil contempt since 2015, when a federal judge in Ohio ordered him imprisoned indefinitely until he cooperated in locating the coins, valued at around $2.5 million. The judge ended the contempt sentence in 2024, determining that further detention was unlikely to yield information, but Thompson remained behind bars to serve a separate two-year term for failing to appear in court in 2012. His release followed the completion of that sentence, though he now faces one year of supervised release and fines totaling approximately $250,000.

The saga traces back to 1988, when Thompson, then an oceanic engineer at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, led an expedition that located the SS Central America, known as the Ship of Gold. The steamship sank during a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina in September 1857, claiming the lives of more than 400 passengers...