The court-appointed receiver now in charge of Tommy Thompson’s deep-sea exploration companies wants a bankruptcy judge to sink the fugitive treasure hunter’s bankruptcy case, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Thompson is the engineer and undersea explorer who in the 1980s found the wreck of the SS Central America, a U.S. mail steamer that went down off the North Carolina coast in 1857 with 18 tons of gold. Within a few years, Thompson, 60, had recovered more than three tons of gold, silver and other treasures, estimated to be worth at least $100 million. He’s been fighting with former partners and investors ever since. In May an Ohio judge ordered the receiver to take over Thompson’s companies, Columbus Exploration LLC and Recovery LP. Now that receiver, Ira Kane, intends to ask Bankruptcy Judge Peter Walsh to dismiss the case. A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5.
