REPORTER'S THOUGHTS ON TOMMY THOMPSON'S CAPTURE

The morning in January when news broke that federal fugitive Tommy Thompson had been arrested, after more than two years on the lam, no fewer than 10 people approached me, called me, even texted me to relay their “Did you hear?!” and express excitement and disbelief. I, too, was surprised, but not just that they’d found the former hometown hero. I was shocked—disappointed even—by where they’d found him: a hotel room in Boca Raton, Florida. You’ve got to be kidding. Not only was he still in the U.S.—it had been widely rumored he was abroad—but he was less than 100 miles from his last known address. He had been hiding in plain sight.

I spent the better part of last year researching for a story about Thompson, a Columbus engineer who made history in 1989 when he and a crew of scientists and seamen hauled nearly 3 tons of gold from a historic shipwreck on the ocean floor. (My 17-page story about Thompson and the aftermath of his momentous discovery, “Man Overboard,” made the cover of our November 2014 issue.) I talked to people who knew him when he was a brainy kid in Defiance, Ohio. I talked to those who were at sea with him when he and his crew discovered the SS Central America, a wood-hulled steamship that sank in 1857 with tons of gold in its hold. And I talked to the Columbus tycoons whom Thompson convinced to invest millions in his dubious mission.

The story of Thompson and the ship of gold gripped Columbus then and continues to hold tight now, thanks in large part to the two-year manhunt, now over, for Thompson and his assistant, Alison Antekeier, who disappeared after a federal judge in Columbus ordered them to appear in court.

I’d imagined him living abroad, sailing from place to place. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn he had been found living in a rainforest or on a remote island somewhere and had established a self-sustaining community that had power and running water.

After spending so much time reading, thinking and talking about Thompson, I’d built him up to be a sort of mythical character in my mind. And, after poring over court records filled with testimony from and about Thompson and holding hours of conversation with people who knew him well, I never saw him as the crook he’s often portrayed to be. I see him instead as a smart guy who did an extraordinary thing and wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of legal minutiae that followed. I’m not condoning his behavior, but I don’t think it was premeditated. Perhaps the pressure truly drove him mad. That’s all very easy for me to say—he didn’t take any of my money.

Investor Don Garlikov thinks Thompson and the directors who helped manage the money did everything they could to protect the investors. He sees Thompson as a victim.

“We’re in a sad state of affairs,” Garlikov says. “This shouldn’t have happened in the first place. It was done for the wrong reasons.”

To read the complete article, see:
Reporter’s Notebook: Hunting Tommy Thompson (www.columbusmonthly.com/content/stories/2015/04/reporters-notebook-hunting-tommy-thompson.html)

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