PORTLAND, Maine — The researcher working with Gorham treasure hunter Greg Brooks told a federal investigator that he had collaborated in a scheme to defraud investors, according to a search warrant application unsealed Thursday.
No charges have formally been filed against Brooks, whose company Sea Hunters had touted its discovery of the S.S. Port Nicholson, which it claimed held billions in platinum ingots and other precious metals.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment Friday on the ongoing investigation.
In a document unsealed by the U.S. District Court for Maine, federal investigator William Johnson wrote that he interviewed Brooks’ research partner, Edward Michaud of Framingham, Massachusetts, in November 2014.
Michaud, he wrote, said he and Brooks crafted a plan to falsify documents showing abundant riches aboard the sunken World War II freight ship amid pressure from investors.
“Michaud admitted to a scheme to defraud investors by fraudulently altering photographs of [National Archives and Records Administration] ship’s records that he received from a private researcher hired by his company, Trident Research,” the search warrant application states.
Michaud also told the investigator, according to the document, that Brooks used the fraudulent ship records “to solicit monies from potential investors.”
The search warrant application also states that it “monitored a consensually recorded conversation” between Michaud and Brooks in a Home Depot parking lot in South Portland, where the two discussed altering the documents.
The details of the search warrant application come after Brooks testified that the documents were falsified in a related battle over salvage rights to the ship. Brooks wrote that he was deceived by two documents provided by Trident Research, indicating a cache of platinum and gold that would be worth more than $3 billion.
The British government, which had the ship under a time charter for war-related purposes at the time it sank, has argued that it should have the rights to salvage the ship. A group of investors organized under the name Mission Recovery also sought salvage rights through that case.
A judge’s order in April revoked Sea Hunters’ salvage rights to the ship and directed Mission Recovery to pursue such rights in a separate case, if it so chose.
Investigators did ultimately search Brooks’ home in December and took into evidence 73 separate exhibits, including hard drives, five computers, cellphones and digital media, looking for evidence of wire fraud, false statements and forgery of ship’s papers.
The search warrant application unsealed by the court this week stated that Brooks — during the Home Depot parking lot conversation — expressed concerns about facing charges in connection with the criminal investigation.
“Michaud told Brooks that he (Michaud) is ‘on the hook for the documents’ and Brooks is ‘on the hook for the money’ and [sic] which point Brooks replies, ‘Oh, I know.’”