Treasure hunter lawsuit back on

• Tweet

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 5 (UPI) -- A lawsuit Ohio investors filed against a treasure hunting company is under way again after the company withdrew its bankruptcy filing, court documents show.

Recovery Limited Partnership, run by treasure hunter Tommy Thompson, withdrew the bankruptcy proceeding it filed in March in "the interests of all creditors," court bankruptcy documents indicated. The March filing had halted a lawsuit by investors who financially supported Thompson's dive to recover about $400 million in gold from a shipwreck off the Carolina coast, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported Tuesday.

Thompson recovered about $52 million of the gold in 2000 and sold it to California Gold Group, but investors said they never saw a penny of the proceeds.

Investors Donald C. Fanta and The Dispatch Printing Co. sued Thompson, Recovery Limited Partnership and Thompson's second company, Columbus Exploration LLC, in 2005 to obtain an accounting of their finances.

The case had been delayed for years, bounced around from Franklin County Common Pleas Court to U.S. District Court in Columbus and back again.

Investors sued in 2008 to have a receiver take over the companies to sell the rights to the unrecovered treasure or have someone else recover it, the Dispatch reported. Dispatch attorney Steve Tigges said the motion for a receiver will be renewed now that the bankruptcy filing has been dropped.