Thirty-seven years ago, a young lifeguard named Peter Leo went swimming near Jupiter Inlet.
To his surprise, he discovered an anchor and a cannon about 100 yards offshore. Leo and his friends determined that the artifacts likely came from a Spanish galleon that sank near the cove in the late 17th century.
The discovery triggered legal battles with the state and federal governments over the rights to salvage the treasure found at the wreck site and how that salvage could be accomplished. Almost four decades later, the salvage company Leo formed with his partnerformer marina owner Dominic Addario has filed another federal lawsuit that accuses the Army Corps of Engineers of illegally withholding the renewal of a “dredge and fill” permit the company was required to obtain for the past 33 years.
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After discovering the anchor and cannon in 1987, Leo and Addario found silver coins minted in Spain, some gold coins, two gold bars and an 80-pound silver bar marked with the date 1669.
Suspecting that the recovery of the artifacts would be contested, the pair quickly formed a company, Jupiter Wreck, and hired David Paul Horan, a Key West-based maritime attorney who represented famed salvor Mel Fisher in Fisher’s successful effort to claim the ownership of found valuables. at the site of Nuestra Señora de Atocha in the 1970s and 1980s.
Horan instructed Addario to file suit in federal court, beginning a years-long battle with the state of Florida over the state’s claim to ownership of the wreck site and all its artifacts.
Ultimately, the state agreed to allow the Jupiter Wreck salvage operation as long as the company sent back 20% of whatever it found, Horan, 81, said in an interview.
That arrangement worked well for years, Horan said. The company and its unlikely origins have become the focus of countless news stories, books and TV shows. Jupiter Wreck recovered thousands of coins with values ranging from a few hundred dollars to $15,000 each, Horan said. To recover artifacts found on the ocean’s hard surface, the state allowed the company to use a blower that attaches to the boat’s propeller and sends water through a tube to uncover sand, Horan said.
Addario passed away last October and Leo sold his shares in the company to a group of investors. The new president, Scott Thomson, said he was unable to speak about the newest lawsuit. But he added: “When we can dive, we bring back treasure almost every day.”
The ship’s ballast was never found. The company’s current investors believe that when it is found, a large amount of silver and gold will be found with it, Horan said.
“Ah, yes,” he said when asked if there is more treasure. “It’s a very shallow wreck, but some areas are covered in very deep sand. When we get there, I believe we will find significant treasure.”
The latest lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach, names the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a defendant and claims that Robin Moore, an archaeologist in the agency’s Jacksonville district, is blocking an extension of the license. of the company’s dredging. Moore is following the Registry of Professional Archaeologists code of conduct that prevents the recovery or excavation of archaeological resources “for commercial exploitation,” according to the lawsuit.
In an email, a spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers, Peggy Bebb, said she could not comment on pending litigation. Moore could not be reached for comment despite an email request from the Sun Sentinel.
The lawsuit says current federal law defines dredging as “the removal of materials from the waters of the United States.” The company claims its excavator never removes material from the water, according to the lawsuit. Instead, it displaces sand to form a berm around a hole, he says. “As soon as the excavator is stopped, the hole begins to fill, giving divers just a few minutes to check the hole with their metal detectors. Within hours, the holes are completely filled and the sand disperses back to the bottom,” the lawsuit says.
The company has received license extensions from the Army Corps every five years for 30 years, the lawsuit states, and most recently applied for one in December 2022, well before its most recent extension expired in July 2023.
The suit says the Army Corps offered a “programmatic agreement” and then a “permission offered.” Both give the agency “complete control of all aspects of (the company’s) rights under its Admiralty claim,” the company said in the filing.
Jupiter Wreck rejected the offer and filed an appeal, but the Army Corps was unable to schedule a hearing on the appeal within 60 days as required and has yet to issue a decision on the matter, the suit says. At a recent conference in late July, the Army Corps said it would take another year to make a final decision on the license extension request, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the Army Corps does not have jurisdiction over the wreck under the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987, that the Jupiter Wreck activities are not “dredging or filling” as defined by federal law, and that the Army Corps has no power or authority to require inspections or permits.
Lindsey Brock, a Jacksonville attorney who, with Horan, represents Jupiter Wreck, said the Army Corps is exceeding its authority by withholding the license extension.
“For more than 30 years, the Army Corps of Engineers has never opposed reissuing the Jupiter Wreck permit,” Brock said. “The federal admiralty court granted the salvage rights to the Jupiter Wreck (and) the state of Florida granted the salvage permits, therefore the Army Corps of Engineers does not have the authority to attempt to stop this lawful salvage by the company.”
Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached at 954-356-4071, on Twitter @ronhurtibise or by email at rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com.
