A Morgan Hill man’s story about paying Brazilian miners $60,000
for an 840-pound emerald was deemed not credible by a judge
Wednesday. Full article
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LOS ANGELES – A Morgan Hill man’s story about paying Brazilian miners $60,000 for an 840-pound emerald was deemed not credible by a judge Wednesday who tentatively dismissed his claim that he was the rightful owner of the jewel appraised as high as $900 million.
Superior Court Judge John Kronstadt ruled that resident Anthony Thomas appeared to have “changed his testimony throughout the trial to improve his changes of prevailing, and that many of his assertions simply defied logic,” according to an Associated Press report. The judge’s 48-page ruling was tentative and he said he would give Thomas time to object – until May 10.
The 840-pound stone, a Bahia Emerald, has been the centerpiece in the twisted saga that spans two hemispheres. It has been claimed by more than a dozen different parties and tore apart a friendship between Thomas and a San Jose man.
The long-simmering dispute over its ownership made its way to a Los Angeles courtroom in September 2010 in which Ken Conetto of San Jose claimed to be the owner of the gem.
Thomas claimed he purchased the rock in 2001 for $60,000, from a pair of Brazilian miners who dug it out of the ground. He even had his picture taken with the emerald, but testified in November that he lost the bill of sale from the purchase in a house fire.
Facilitating the sale, according to Baruh, was Conetto, a former friend of Thomas’ who has been involved in various mining interests – including in Nevada – for more than 30 years.
Thomas claims that Conetto told him he would arrange shipment of the 180,000-carat rock out of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Baruh said. However, Conetto told Thomas that the emerald was stolen in Brazil as it was about to be shipped.
From there the emerald took a circuitous and partly unknown route to a number of places in the western hemisphere, and was even submerged in Hurricane Katrina’s flood waters, in an underground vault in New Orleans, for a year before Conetto retrieved it and brought it back to San Jose.
Conetto’s attorney, Eric Kitchen, claimed to have imported the giant gem to California himself in 2005.
Although Thomas didn’t see the Bahia Emerald for seven years following his claimed purchase of it in 2001, he saw it on CNN in 2008 when it was seized by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office as stolen property, Baruh said in the September interview.
Judge Kronstadt noted in his ruling that Thomas “never insured the valuable stone or contacted the shipper to try to recover it,” the AP reported. Kronstadt also found his explanation that someone burned down his home to destroy the bill of sale faulty. He said that firefighters resolved the fire was caused by a house sitter who left a pot of beans unattended on a stove.
While the emerald was out of his possession, it had been to El Monte, Santa Barbara, Las Vegas and Los Angeles in a series of sales by parties whose claim to the rock’s ownership was also dubious, Kitchen explained. Authorities caught wind of one of these transactions, by Kit Morrison who fraudulently used the emerald as collateral on a loan, and police seized the rock.
Since 2008, the Bahia Emerald has been locked up with the Los Angeles County major crimes task force until its ownership can be determined.
The chain of sales of the emerald over the years produced a number of litigants who now claim the rock is theirs in the current court battle, the AP report said.
Conetto still claims the emerald is his, though if he regains the rock he plans to donate it to charity, Kitchen said.
