Ohio
Gold treasure hunter to serve additional time in jail as his sentence ends
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A former deep-sea treasure hunter who has served nearly a decade in jail for refusing to disclose the whereabouts of missing gold coins has had that term ended by a federal judge in Ohio, but he will remain behind bars for now.
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.
Thompson has been held in contempt of court since Dec. 15, 2015, and also incurred a daily fine of $1,000. In his ruling, Marbley assessed Thompson’s total civil contempt fine at $3,335,000.
Thompson’s case dates to his discovery of the S.S. Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, in 1988. The gold rush-era ship sank in a hurricane off South Carolina in 1857 with thousands of pounds of gold aboard, contributing to an economic panic.
Despite an investor lawsuit and a federal court order, Thompson still won’t cooperate with authorities trying to find 500 coins minted from some of the gold, according to court records. He has previously said, without providing details, that the coins — valued at about $2.5 million — were turned over to a trust in Belize.
After Thompson failed to appear for a 2012 Ohio hearing to discuss the coins, U.S. marshals eventually tracked him to Florida in 2015 and arrested him. He pleaded guilty in April 2015 to skipping that hearing and was given the two-year prison sentence.
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.
Wisconsin
Altered image of State Supreme Court candidate in new ad raises ethics concerns
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A new television attack ad in Wisconsin’s hotly contested Supreme Court race features a doctored image of the liberal candidate, a move that her campaign claims could be a violation of a recently enacted state law.
The image in question is of Susan Crawford, a Dane County circuit court judge. It appeared in a new TV ad paid for by the campaign of her opponent Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County circuit court judge.
The winner of the high-stakes race on April 1 will determine whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court remains under a liberal majority or flips to conservative control.
The Schimel campaign ad begins and ends with a black-and-white image of Crawford with her lips closed together. A nearly identical color image from her 2018 run for Dane County Circuit Court shows Crawford with a wide smile on her face.
Crawford’s campaign accused Schimel of manipulating the image, potentially in violation of a state law enacted last year. The law, passed with bipartisan support in the Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, requires disclosure if political ads use audio or video content created by generative artificial intelligence. Failure to disclose the use of AI as required can result in a $1,000 fine.
Schimel’s campaign spokesperson Jacob Fischer said the image was “edited” but not created by AI.
Peter Loge, the director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University, said images should never be changed to give a false impression.
“That said, as these things go, it’s not that egregious,” Loge said of the Schimel ad.
“A good rule of thumb is to take everything with a grain of salt,” Loge said. “Just because you see it on television or on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true.”
The Schimel ad attacks Crawford over the release of a convicted rapist in 2001 because the state’s office of criminal appeals missed the deadline to appeal to the state Supreme Court. Crawford headed the division at the time, but the error miscalculating the appeal deadline was made by another attorney in the office and by two secretaries, according to a report by the attorney general.
“Crawford didn’t bother filing the appeal in time, letting the rapist walk free,” the Schimel ad claims.
After that error was discovered, Crawford ordered a review of every pending appeal’s deadline and personally calculated the deadline for petitions for review to the state Supreme Court. Republican officeholders at the time who investigated what happened, including then-state Rep. Scott Walker, said the error was an isolated incident.
Schimel served one term as attorney general between 2015 and 2019 when Walker was governor. Walker appointed Schimel as a judge the day after Schimel lost reelection in 2018.
New York
Death of man beaten by prison guards ruled a homicide in autopsy report, lawyers say
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The death of a handcuffed man who was pummeled by New York prison guards was ruled a homicide in an autopsy report, lawyers for his family said Wednesday.
The report issued by the county medical examiner’s office last week concludes that the cause of Robert Brooks’ death in December was compression of the neck and multiple blunt impact injuries. The manner of death was determined to be homicide, according to the attorneys.
Body camera video shows corrections officers assaulting Brooks for about 10 minutes while he was handcuffed on a medical examination table at Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9. One officer uses a shoe to strike Brooks in the stomach, and another yanks him up by his neck and drops him back on the table.
Brooks was pronounced dead the next morning.
“I think what this does is rule out any argument that there was some other cause of death other than what we saw on video,” family attorney Stephen Schwarz said of the autopsy report.
New York’s attorney general last month appointed Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick as a special prosecutor to investigate Brooks’ death. A grand jury is expected to hear evidence in the case.
More than a dozen correctional officers and two nurses were suspended without pay. One officer quit.
Brooks’ son, Robert L. Brooks Jr., has sued the people implicated in the attack, as well as the head of the upstate facility at that time and the commissioner of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
Gold treasure hunter to serve additional time in jail as his sentence ends
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A former deep-sea treasure hunter who has served nearly a decade in jail for refusing to disclose the whereabouts of missing gold coins has had that term ended by a federal judge in Ohio, but he will remain behind bars for now.
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.
Thompson has been held in contempt of court since Dec. 15, 2015, and also incurred a daily fine of $1,000. In his ruling, Marbley assessed Thompson’s total civil contempt fine at $3,335,000.
Thompson’s case dates to his discovery of the S.S. Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, in 1988. The gold rush-era ship sank in a hurricane off South Carolina in 1857 with thousands of pounds of gold aboard, contributing to an economic panic.
Despite an investor lawsuit and a federal court order, Thompson still won’t cooperate with authorities trying to find 500 coins minted from some of the gold, according to court records. He has previously said, without providing details, that the coins — valued at about $2.5 million — were turned over to a trust in Belize.
After Thompson failed to appear for a 2012 Ohio hearing to discuss the coins, U.S. marshals eventually tracked him to Florida in 2015 and arrested him. He pleaded guilty in April 2015 to skipping that hearing and was given the two-year prison sentence.
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.
Wisconsin
Altered image of State Supreme Court candidate in new ad raises ethics concerns
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A new television attack ad in Wisconsin’s hotly contested Supreme Court race features a doctored image of the liberal candidate, a move that her campaign claims could be a violation of a recently enacted state law.
The image in question is of Susan Crawford, a Dane County circuit court judge. It appeared in a new TV ad paid for by the campaign of her opponent Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County circuit court judge.
The winner of the high-stakes race on April 1 will determine whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court remains under a liberal majority or flips to conservative control.
The Schimel campaign ad begins and ends with a black-and-white image of Crawford with her lips closed together. A nearly identical color image from her 2018 run for Dane County Circuit Court shows Crawford with a wide smile on her face.
Crawford’s campaign accused Schimel of manipulating the image, potentially in violation of a state law enacted last year. The law, passed with bipartisan support in the Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, requires disclosure if political ads use audio or video content created by generative artificial intelligence. Failure to disclose the use of AI as required can result in a $1,000 fine.
Schimel’s campaign spokesperson Jacob Fischer said the image was “edited” but not created by AI.
Peter Loge, the director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University, said images should never be changed to give a false impression.
“That said, as these things go, it’s not that egregious,” Loge said of the Schimel ad.
“A good rule of thumb is to take everything with a grain of salt,” Loge said. “Just because you see it on television or on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true.”
The Schimel ad attacks Crawford over the release of a convicted rapist in 2001 because the state’s office of criminal appeals missed the deadline to appeal to the state Supreme Court. Crawford headed the division at the time, but the error miscalculating the appeal deadline was made by another attorney in the office and by two secretaries, according to a report by the attorney general.
“Crawford didn’t bother filing the appeal in time, letting the rapist walk free,” the Schimel ad claims.
After that error was discovered, Crawford ordered a review of every pending appeal’s deadline and personally calculated the deadline for petitions for review to the state Supreme Court. Republican officeholders at the time who investigated what happened, including then-state Rep. Scott Walker, said the error was an isolated incident.
Schimel served one term as attorney general between 2015 and 2019 when Walker was governor. Walker appointed Schimel as a judge the day after Schimel lost reelection in 2018.
New York
Death of man beaten by prison guards ruled a homicide in autopsy report, lawyers say
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The death of a handcuffed man who was pummeled by New York prison guards was ruled a homicide in an autopsy report, lawyers for his family said Wednesday.
The report issued by the county medical examiner’s office last week concludes that the cause of Robert Brooks’ death in December was compression of the neck and multiple blunt impact injuries. The manner of death was determined to be homicide, according to the attorneys.
Body camera video shows corrections officers assaulting Brooks for about 10 minutes while he was handcuffed on a medical examination table at Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9. One officer uses a shoe to strike Brooks in the stomach, and another yanks him up by his neck and drops him back on the table.
Brooks was pronounced dead the next morning.
“I think what this does is rule out any argument that there was some other cause of death other than what we saw on video,” family attorney Stephen Schwarz said of the autopsy report.
New York’s attorney general last month appointed Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick as a special prosecutor to investigate Brooks’ death. A grand jury is expected to hear evidence in the case.
More than a dozen correctional officers and two nurses were suspended without pay. One officer quit.
Brooks’ son, Robert L. Brooks Jr., has sued the people implicated in the attack, as well as the head of the upstate facility at that time and the commissioner of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
