Tommy Thompson, a brilliant research scientist and treasure hunter, is spending the holidays in an Ohio jail cell for a second year as he continues to rack up fines of $1,000 a day.

All he has to do to stop the fines and begin working his way to freedom: Give up details that will help his former investors locate a cache of missing gold coins that were minted from GoldRush-era ingots he found in a famous wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean nearly three decades ago.

Judge Marbley then ordered Mr. Thompson to remain in prison and pay a daily fine until he agrees to provide information about 500 commemorative coins to lawyers for the investors who backed his1988 discovery of the S.S. Central America.

At one time, Mr. Thompson worked for Battelle, a nonprofit R&D organization in Columbus, and he has said he designed missile systems for submarines. He became focused on locating the S.S. CentralAmerica, which sank off the coast of the Carolinas in a hurricane in 1857. In 1988, he led a team using a remote-operated vehicle and found the ship at an underwater depth of more than a mile.

The feat was hailed around the world, and the treasure-more than 7,500 gold coins, 532 gold ingots, jewelry, Derringer pistols-promised to enrich Mr. Thompson and others involved in theendeavor.

"I'm frustrated at how much attention is showered on him, when I think the real story is the treasure," said Bob Evans, a scientist and historian who met Mr. Thompson in 1978 and was intimatelyinvolved in the salvage project and the restoration and sale of the treasure.

Mr. Evans said the artifacts provide a rare window onto the Gold Rush era, when steamships carried gold, mail and wealthy passengers from San Francisco to Panama, and, after a rail crossing overland, from Panama to New York.

The S.S. Central America was considered one of the greatest lost treasures in U.S. history, he said. The loss of so much currency helped spark a financial panic. Some 425 people lost their lives,while 153 passengers, mostly women and children, were rescued.

To read the complete article (subscriptionrequired), see:
A Treasure Hunter Sits in Jail as Investors Seek Whereabouts of GoldCoins (www.wsj.com/articles/a-treasure-hunter-sits-in-jail-as-investors-seek-whereabouts-of-gold-coins-1483111248)

To read an earlier E-Sylum article, see:
S.S. CENTRAL AMERICA COMMEMORATIVE RESTRIKE CLUES (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n19a37.html)