Stolen SS Central America Gold Recovered

Valuable gold treasure returned to NBA sports agent
Associated Press

IRVINE, Calif. - Police have arrested a man for stealing a 4-pound gold bar from NBA agent Dwight Manley after the missing treasure turned up at a coin dealership last week.

The bar, made in the mid-1850s in Sacramento, is valued at about $500,000 and was allegedly stolen by a subcontractor working on Manley's Irvine home. It was among three tons of gold and minted coins recovered from the SS Central America, which sank off the North Carolina coast during a hurricane in 1857.

Investigators found the bar last week at a Rancho Santa Margarita coin dealership, said Newport Beach police Lt. Bill Hartford said. They believe that Lawrence Wach, 49, of Capistrano Beach stole the bar from Manley's home in December while subcontracting for an interior designer.

Wach is charged with grand theft and was released on bail, Hartford said. The bar was sold in exchange for $9,500 and 40 ounces of gold, Manley said.

Manley, a land developer and sports agent, owns eight of the bars and had been storing them in his garage since selling his former home in Newport Beach. He had intended to move them to a bank vault last week when he noticed one was missing, he said.

"I thought it was gone forever," Manley said. "The person could've melted the bar, and it would've been a loss of a national treasure."

Manley bought about 92 percent of the treasure in 1999 as an investment and later sold most of it. He bought the recovered gold bar at an auction in 2000 as part of the collection he plans to pass along to his children. The bars were irreplaceable, he said.

"It's like being connected to 150 years ago, to this guy making them by human hand," he said. "It's like you can almost feel the man's power holding the gold."