UPDATE! Arrested: "Husband of missing woman allegedly stole $100K in coins"...Oh, he's from Florida
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These stories get crazier and crazier.......enjoy..........
Husband of missing woman allegedly stole $100K in coins
By Joshua Rhett Miller
A Florida man who reported his wife missing during a belated honeymoon sailing trip in the Caribbean has been arrested on federal charges for allegedly stealing as much as $100,000 in gold and silver coins.
The federal theft complaint filed Friday against Lewis Bennett, of Delray Beach, makes no mention of foul play in connection to Isabella Hellman, Bennett’s 41-year-old wife who Bennett claims disappeared in May when the couple’s 37-foot catamaran — called Surf into Summer — hit something off the coast of Cay Sal in the Bahamas, the Palm Beach Post reported.
Coast Guard teams covered more than 6,000 square miles during a four-day search for Hellman after the boat capsized.
Bennett, 38, asked Coast Guard officials for a “letter of presumed death” within a day of the search being called off, according to Palm Beach County court records. Coast Guard and FBI officials confirmed that the agencies were conducting a missing person investigation, but neither has indicated that any foul play was suspected.
News of Bennett’s arrest came as a federal complaint was unsealed Monday, which charges that the husband stole the coins while working as a first mate on a ship based in St. Maarten. The owner of the ship, called Kitty R, said he bought 617 collectible coins worth about $41,000 in September 2015.
The owner reported that Bennett was a crew member in May 2016, when gold and silver coins stashed inside plastic tubes on the ship were stolen. The owner didn’t file a claim, he said, because the items weren’t covered by his insurance policy.
But Bennett filed a police report, according to the complaint, and claimed the coins were stolen days earlier when he and the owner weren’t aboard.
Bennett, according to travel records cited by the newspaper, traveled from Fort Lauderdale to St. Maarten last March and returned after a few weeks. He went to St. Maarten days later with Hellman to start a delayed honeymoon trip.
About one month later, on May 15, Bennett called the Coast Guard for help and reported his newlywed bride missing. Authorities noticed that he put a suitcase and two backpacks on a life raft when the Coast Guard retrieved him, but only took one backpack with him when pulled off the raft by a Coast Guard swimmer who “noticed that his backpack was unusually heavy,” according to the complaint.
The life raft was later recovered and contained, among other items, a suitcase, a backpack, 14 gallons of water and nine plastic tubes with 225 of the stolen coins worth about $4,200, the complaint reads.
The coins were later returned to Bennett on May 23 before authorities realized they could have been stolen. He then agreed to turn over the coins, which were still in evidence bags. After the owner of the coins confirmed they were his, authorities raided Bennett’s condo — where they found another 162 coins worth about $26,100 hidden in boat shoes, according to the federal complaint.
Bennett was scheduled to appear in federal court in Key West on Tuesday. Attorneys for Hellman’s relatives and Bennett could not be reached for comment Monday, the Palm Beach Post reports.
The investigation into Hellman’s disappearance expanded to include Bennett in June, according to a police report cited by the Orlando Sentinel.
Bennett had the couple’s 9-month-old son with him when he called police in Boca Raton as he tried to pick up a computer and other items from his in-laws’ home. Hellman’s sister yelled at Bennett, accusing him of killing her sister, the report said.
http://nypost.com/2017/08/29/husband-of-missing-woman-allegedly-stole-100k-in-coins/
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Husband of missing woman allegedly stole $100K in coins
"The life raft was later recovered and contained, among other items, a suitcase, a backpack, 14 gallons of water and nine plastic tubes with 225 of the stolen coins worth about $4,200, the complaint reads."
$4200??? I was thinking at least 1/2 million $.
Wow, another Floridian coin thief. Its an epidemic.
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The Daily Mail ran this story several days ago.
The first set of numbers "225" kinda jibe if you're talking Silver Eagles or Silver Maples. The second set "162" kinda jibes if you're talking 1/10th ounce gold coins.
If somebody stashed some survival coins on a boat, the one ounce silvers and one-tenth ounce gold make sense as trade coins.
The amounts of money involved are rather small compared to the possible crimes.
Stay outta Florida!
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Even Hollywood screen writers can't come up with stories like this.
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Interesting how people are their own worst enemy..... so many mistakes... and he likely will also be charged with murder eventually.... He is so incompetent I am surprised he even managed to pull off the stunts initially. Cheers, RickO
It's not just coin thieves. The state is rife with crazies, drug heads, and white trash rednecks. Nice for vacation if staying in protected areas, not a place I'd ever want to live.
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My sets: [280+ horse coins] :: [France Sowers] :: [Colorful world copper] :: [Beautiful world coins]
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Got the bast*rd!!
RickO is a Navy man. Perhaps he can share some of his expertise on this boating incident.
From ABC News.........
Husband charged with murder in high seas honeymoon disappearance
A British man was arrested and charged with murder in connection with the disappearance of his newlywed wife last May, who he claimed fell from their catamaran during a belated honeymoon sailing trip to the Caribbean, authorities said today.
Lewis Bennett, 41, was arrested on Feb. 16 after an FBI investigation found evidence discrediting his story that his wife, Isabella Hellman, the mother of his 9-month-old daughter, vanished from their 40-foot vessel when it hit something in open international waters while he was asleep in the cabin below deck, according to a criminal complaint obtained by ABC News.
Lewis Bennett is pictured in an undated booking photo released by the Broward Sheriff's office in Florida.
By examining photos and video the U.S. Coast Guard took of the catamaran before it sank, an expert hired by the FBI to help in the high-seas mystery determined Bennett's story couldn't be true.
"Based on the analysis it does not appear the vessel sinking was caused by accidental damage. Rather, it appears the vessel was intentionally scuttled," an associate professor of nautical architecture and ocean engineering at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy stated in court records.
Bennett was arrested when he appeared in a Florida court on unrelated charges of transporting $5,000 of gold and silver coins, which he pleaded guilty to in November, according to the complaint.
Isabella Hellman is pictured in an undated photo posted to the Find Isabella Facebook page on June 1, 2017.
"I respectfully submit that there is probable cause to believe that Lewis Richard Bennett knowingly and unlawfully killed Isabella Hellman with malice aforethought within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States," FBI Special Agent James Kelley wrote in the criminal complaint.
Investigators suspect Bennett killed his 41-year-old wife in order to collect on an insurance policy and take sole possession of their marital assets, including bank accounts and a home she owned in Delray Beach, Florida, according to court documents. He also raised suspicions when he asked the Coast Guard for a “letter of presumed death" on the day they called off the search for his wife, four days after she disappeared, according to the complaint.
Isabella Hellman's body was never found despite a 4,900-square-mile search for her conducted by the Coast Guard.
Bennett, who had been a realtor in South Florida, and Hellman were married in February 2017 and set out on a belated honeymoon in May, according to the court papers.
Bennett told investigators that he and his wife began their sailing trip from the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, journeyed to Puerto Rico and arrived in Cuba. They spent a day in Varadero, Cuba, before charting a course back to Florida on the evening of May 17, 2017, the complaint said. He claimed they had planned to either sail to Key West or Fort Lauderdale and around 8 p.m. he set the "auto pilot" on the vessel, told his wife to take watch on deck and headed below to sleep, according to the documents.
_The 37-foot catamaran, Surf into Summer, is pictured while partially sunk, May 15, 2017 in the Florida Straits 30 miles west of Cay Sal, Bahamas.
"Bennett claimed that he was next awakened by a 'crashing underneath' a few hours later," Kelley wrote in the court papers. "Bennett said he went to the upper deck and Hellman was not there."
Bennett told investigators he noticed the vessel was taking on water, so he gathered his personal belongings -- including unexpended parachute flares, water, a tea set, and nine plastic tubes containing silver coins -- and abandoned ship, jumping into a life raft and cutting himself adrift from the sinking catamaran, the court documents state.
When asked during a May 23 interview with investigators what efforts he took to locate his wife in the water, "Bennett said that he did not do anything," the complaint said.
Instead, he used a satellite phone to call one of wife's sisters, leaving her a voicemail informing her of Hellman's disappearance, the complaint said. He then contacted a friend in Australia and asked that they contact the U.S. Coast Guard on his behalf, the complaint said.
"Bennett then made telephonic contact with USCG while awaiting his rescue," Kelley noted in the complaint.
Within days of arriving back in South Florida, Bennett purchased airline tickets for him and his young daughter and took her to the United Kingdom on May 28.
He was arrested in the stolen coin case in August 2017, when he returned to South Florida for an interview on his insurance claim, the complaint said.
Bennett was arrested for his wife's murder on the same day Hellman's parents and sisters sent a letter to federal Judge James Lawrence King complaining that Bennett has kept them away from his daughter, Emilia.
"We do not want to say anything bad about Lewis, but we would like him to know how much it hurts us not to be able to see and spend time with our granddaughter and niece, Emilia, since he took her out of the country," the family wrote in the letter obtained by ABC News. "Lewis knows that Isabella's mother was very much involved in caring for Emilia from the time of her birth here in Florida until she was lost at sea."
Members of the Coast Guard search for Isabella Hellman west of Cay Sal, Bahamas, May 17, 2017.
In his statement, Kelley indicated that Bennett's story of his catamaran crashing into something in open waters raised suspicions. He said, according to the complaint, that the catamaran's two escape hatch portholes were inexplicably opened and that holes seen in both hulls were almost identical, according to the complaint.
"I cannot think of any item that would accidentally cause similar holes in both hulls at roughly the same time," the FBI's nautical architecture and ocean engineering expert noted in the complaint.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/husband-charged-murder-high-seas-honeymoon-disappearance/story?id=53221229
wow, be careful at the fun show's then. just saying
You have to work hard to overturn a catamaran .
I guess if you intended to escape in a life raft its better to steal coins than a decorative anvil collection , but I'd still opt for something that floats
**A British man was arrested and charged with murder **
Yep, this is why we need tougher Visa restrictions - too many bad dudes running around.
So a British man came to Florida to do his dirty work, yet you all trash Florida. Nice. Thanks,
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I have been sailing for over fifty years. This story has stunk right from the start. Least of which, you don't make a passage without wearing a PFD, usually one that auto-inflates when you hit the water.
Too many red flags here.
The crime was evidently committed at a U.S. location. That says nothing about characteristics of the location.
I say he's guilty of both robbery and murder.
"“Those who sacrifice liberty for security/safety deserve neither.“(Benjamin Franklin)
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Greed will get them every time. A monster case of ingratitude, and sadly the girl didn't have a little shrewdness realizing the guy could pull off something really evil like this. In the "law and order", csi etc. show addicted world we live in rarely will people get away with stuff like this.
78 degrees and a gentle breeze here. No sign of crazies on my horizon.
But he went to Florida to do it... It's Florida's own fault. It is too famous for its own good. If it had less to offer like Idaho or West Virginia (j/k) then people from overseas wouldn't gravitate there.
Any who, lots of red flags and sad commentaries here. That is a tough way to earn a living. Too much risk and too much work. Not to mention the murder part.
Also, it was illegal for the wife to go to Cuba as a tourist if she was an American. Not sure about him as a Brit - if he has US residency it might have been illegal for him as well. He might have planned his shenanigans between the US and Cuba since there is less interaction and cooperation that between friendly countries.
Yes, please stay out of FL. It's getting too crowded.
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The only thing that could've made it better would be if the woman survived, wound up on an island for a few years, made a near-impossible 200 mile raft ride, and killed the son of a bitch with an axe she fashioned from a propeller and driftwood, while he lay in bed with another woman he was about to kill.
^ That's some Hollywood biz right there.
Crazy stuff.
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never realized there was a federal courthouse in Key West
I'm convinced a disproportionate share of coin-related crime occurs in Florida - based on anecdotal evidence, having lived there ten years. Goes back to the 1970s-era boiler room ops and probably even before that.
I've known multiple people from overseas who think of America as Florida, New York, and California. One visitor from japan wanted to know if he could visit and sightsee all three during a week in the US.
wow, be careful at the fun show's then. just saying
Yes, by all means - or better yet, only attend shows in safe, low crime rate areas like Chicago and Baltimore.....
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Idaho has nothing to offer.
Stay away!
Do we have a new Scott Peterson?
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Florida is a dangerous place. Hurricanes and filled with rapscallions, stay far away...please!
I think you are just trying to use some of that there reverse psychiatry on us.....
I'll bet the stories of alligators who eat pets and small children are all lies, and the reports of 12 foot long pythons are all made up. And I am guessing that Florida is not really overrun with retirees who drive like maniacs.
The jig is up. I will start looking for a place in Florida, and I might as well look for a second home in Utah while I am at it.
I am guessing that Florida is not really overrun with retirees who drive like maniacs.
I was with you until you mentioned that one.
Every time I visit Southern Florida my radar goes up for blue hair drivers and those seniors who's heads are positioned below their steering wheel. Changing lanes on I-95 is just a game to them.
Yeah, GTA 5.
Hope I get picked for the jury.
a man in Florida stole some coins
For this particular story the coins were in st Maarten, right?
Hey! I'm from NY so I have lots of relatives in Florida...........and some of them are good people.
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I only polluted the air in FL
I didn't know about any house mining operations. I feel that I missed out.
Im not knocking the whole state
Without averment, i watch Cops and Live PD and i believe there are a few scetchy trailer parks in good ol FL, and anyone remeber Shane aka Cryptocomics . Just sayin...
But I do love Miami beach and jet skiing around the keys.
Just like anywhere else, you have your good and have your bad. This guy is just a scrum bag.
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...can’t blame Florida all the way here guys as the perp is a redcoat...with what looks like 2 separate beards...shave that neck-beard and hang ‘em high is what I say