Stolen gold from 18th-century French shipwreck could lead to charges for U.S. novelist and her husband

An 80 -year -old American novelist and her husband are part of several people confronted with a possible trial in France for the illegal sale of gold bars looted to an 18th century sinking, after French prosecutors asked for the case.

Eleonor “gay” courter and her 82 -year -old husband, Philip, were accused of having helped sell the online ingots for a French diver who stole him decades ago, but who denied knowledge of any reprehensible act.

The Prince of Conty, a French ship interacting with Asia, sank off the coast of Brittany during a stormy night in the winter of 1746. 229 men on board, only 45 managed to survive, according to the French Ministry of Culture.

Its wreckage was discovered more than two centuries later, in 1974, being in 30 to 50 feet of water near the island of Belle-ile-en-Mer.

The wreckage was pillaged in 1975 after the discovery of a Golden Lingot during a survey on the site.

Archaeologists in the 1980s discovered beautiful Chinese porcelain from the 18th century, the remains of tea boxes and three Chinese gold bars in and around the sinking.

But a violent storm in 1985 dispersed the remains of the ship, ending the official excavations.

Some of the gilded golden bars of the ship finally found their way to an auction in San Francisco, in the CBS Bay region reported.

In 2018, the head of the France’s underwater archeology department, Michel L’Hour, spotted a suspicious sale of five gold bars on a US Auction House website.

He told us to the authorities that he believed from the prince of Conty, and they seized the treasure, Return it to France in 2022.

“These objects tell the story of France, its trade and its people,” said Steve Francis, a senior official of the American department of domestic security in a statement at the time. “HSI is proud to have played a role in the guarantee that these artifacts continue to be part of the history of France for future generations.”

Investigators identified the seller as a certain “gay” courter Eleonor, an author and film producer living in Florida.

Find gold

Courter said that she had received the precious metal by a few French friends, Annette May Pesty, now 78, and her now deceased partner Gerard.

Pesty had told the television series “Ancient Roadshow” in 1999 that she had discovered gold by diving outside the West African Island of Cap Verde.

But the investigators found that this was unlikely and rather focused on his brother-in-law, now the 77-year-old underwater photographer Yves Gladu.

A 1983 trial had recognized five people guilty of embezzlement of diversion and receipt of stolen goods during the looting of the Prince of Conty.

Gladu was not among them.

Held in detention in 2022, he admitted to having recovered 16 gold bars from the ship for about 40 dives on the site between 1976 and 1999.

He said that he had sold them all in 2006 to a retired member of soldiers living in Switzerland.

But he denied having ever given his American friends the brokers.

He had known the author and her husband since the 1980s, and they joined him on vacation on his catamaran in Greece in 2011, in the Caribbean in 2014 and in French Polynesia in 2015, investigators revealed.

The Course Courter was arrested in the United Kingdom in 2022, then put under residence.

French investigators concluded that they had been in possession of at least 23 gold bars in total.

They found that they had sold 18 ingots for more than $ 192,000, some of which via the Ebay online sales platform.

But the brokers said that the arrangement had always been that money went to Gladu.

“They are deeply nice people”

A prosecutor of the city of Brest in western Brest asked that the brokers, Gladu and Annette May Pesty be judged, according to a document obtained by AFP on Tuesday.

An investigation magistrate must always decide whether or not to order a trial, but the prosecutors said that a trial was probably in the fall of 2026.

Gregory Levy’s American couple’s lawyer said they had no idea what they were training.

“The brokers have accepted because they are deeply nice people. They have not seen evil as in the United States, gold regulations are completely different from those of France,” he said, adding that the couple had not benefited from sales.

The lawyers for other suspects did not immediately respond to a request for AFP comments.

Courter wrote several fiction and non-fiction books, some on the nautical theme, according to his website.

One is a thriller located on a cruise ship, while another is his real account of being trapped on an ocean lining off the Japanese coast during forty of 2020 COVID-19.