Husband of missing woman allegedly stole $100K in coins

A Florida man who reported his wife missing during a belated honeymoon sailing trip in the Caribbean has been arrested on federal charges for allegedly stealing as much as $100,000 in gold and silver coins.

The federal theft complaint filed Friday against Lewis Bennett, of Delray Beach, makes no mention of foul play in connection to Isabella Hellman, Bennett’s 41-year-old wife who Bennett claims disappeared in May when the couple’s 37-foot catamaran — called Surf into Summer — hit something off the coast of Cay Sal in the Bahamas, the Palm Beach Post reported.

Coast Guard teams covered more than 6,000 square miles during a four-day search for Hellman after the boat capsized.

Bennett, 38, asked Coast Guard officials for a “letter of presumed death” within a day of the search being called off, according to Palm Beach County court records. Coast Guard and FBI officials confirmed that the agencies were conducting a missing person investigation, but neither has indicated that any foul play was suspected.

News of Bennett’s arrest came as a federal complaint was unsealed Monday, which charges that the husband stole the coins while working as a first mate on a ship based in St. Maarten. The owner of the ship, called Kitty R, said he bought 617 collectible coins worth about $41,000 in September 2015.

The owner reported that Bennett was a crew member in May 2016, when gold and silver coins stashed inside plastic tubes on the ship were stolen. The owner didn’t file a claim, he said, because the items weren’t covered by his insurance policy.

But Bennett filed a police report, according to the complaint, and claimed the coins were stolen days earlier when he and the owner weren’t aboard.

Bennett, according to travel records cited by the newspaper, traveled from Fort Lauderdale to St. Maarten last March and returned after a few weeks. He went to St. Maarten days later with Hellman to start a delayed honeymoon trip.

About one month later, on May 15, Bennett called the Coast Guard for help and reported his newlywed bride missing. Authorities noticed that he put a suitcase and two backpacks on a life raft when the Coast Guard retrieved him, but only took one backpack with him when pulled off the raft by a Coast Guard swimmer who “noticed that his backpack was unusually heavy,” according to the complaint.

The life raft was later recovered and contained, among other items, a suitcase, a backpack, 14 gallons of water and nine plastic tubes with 225 of the stolen coins worth about $4,200, the complaint reads.

The coins were later returned to Bennett on May 23 before authorities realized they could have been stolen. He then agreed to turn over the coins, which were still in evidence bags. After the owner of the coins confirmed they were his, authorities raided Bennett’s condo — where they found another 162 coins worth about $26,100 hidden in boat shoes, according to the federal complaint.

Bennett was scheduled to appear in federal court in Key West on Tuesday. Attorneys for Hellman’s relatives and Bennett could not be reached for comment Monday, the Palm Beach Post reports.

The investigation into Hellman’s disappearance expanded to include Bennett in June, according to a police report cited by the Orlando Sentinel.

Bennett had the couple’s 9-month-old son with him when he called police in Boca Raton as he tried to pick up a computer and other items from his in-laws’ home. Hellman’s sister yelled at Bennett, accusing him of killing her sister, the report said.