The newlywed husband of a Delray Beach woman who went missing at sea has been indicted on suspicion of transporting stolen gold and silver coins.
Many of the coins were found in his life raft when he was rescued from it by the Coast Guard in May, authorities said.
The federal indictment filed in court Wednesday says Lewis Bennett “did knowingly transport, transmit and transfer” the coins, valued at more than $5,000, while knowing they were “stolen, converted and taken by fraud.” The indictment is also seeking forfeiture of about $22,000 in cash found in a Bennett backpack as “proceeds traceable” to the violation.
Bennett, 40, was initially arrested in August accused of the theft and is being held on $250,000 bond at a Broward County jail in Pompano Beach.
A complaint in the case said the 387 recovered stolen coins were valued at more than $30,000, while court records show the owner of the coins puts the total value of his stolen coins at about $100,000.
Bennett was on a belated honeymoon sail on Mother’s Day with Isabella Hellmann when their 37-foot catamaran hit something, he told authorities. He awoke to find Hellmann missing and the boat taking on water on the trip from Cuba to Florida, he said.
He was rescued at 3 a.m. May 15, carrying a backpack that a Coast Guard official noticed was unusually heavy.
The Coast Guard spent four days searching the waters near the Bahamas for Hellmann, 41, but she was never found. The couple have a 1-year-old daughter, who was not on the trip.
Bennett’s life raft was retrieved with a variety of luggage and equipment and nine plastic tubes containing 225 coins, which were later identified as having been stolen from the Kitty R, a sailing vessel from the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, authorities said.
Bennett had been a Kitty R crew member at the time of the coins’ 2016 disappearance and filed a report at the time saying the boat had been burglarized when he and the owner weren’t on board.
The FBI and Coast Guard found 162 more gold coins during a June 16 search of Bennett’s Delray Beach apartment, hidden in a pair of boat shoes, an earlier affidavit said. Those coins were also identified as having been missing from the Kitty R, federal authorities said.
Bennett has an arraignment scheduled in federal court Tuesday.
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lbarszewski@SunSentinel.com, 954-356-4556 or Twitter @lbarszewski
