It's not punishment. This is civil contempt, not criminal, and can persist only so long as the court is confident of the person's capability to cooperate. As th

It's not punishment. This is civil contempt, not criminal, and can persist only so long as the court is confident of the person's capability to cooperate. As the article mentions, he refuses to even execute a limited power of attorney so authorities can follow up on his claim that he turned over the coins to a Belizean trust. In 2009 a bitter divorcee, H. Beatty Chadwick, was released after 14 years (sic!) of confinement. He was eventually released when another judge decided continued confinement was futile. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/12contempt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/12contempt.html But note that the confinement had been reviewed by other courts several times, and every time they agreed that the guy was capable of cooperating. And all it takes is a single judge to decide to end the confinement, not the original judge. Note that these articles never give the full story, and because of that people get the impression that courts are simply relying on mere opinion and conjecture as to whether the person is capable of complying with their order. Here's one of the appellate courts decisions in the Chadwick case, https://casetext.com/case/chadwick-v-janecka https://casetext.com/case/chadwick-v-janecka, which has more details; and a subsequent SCOTUS opinion reciting the same facts, https://casetext.com/case/chadwick-v-janecka-3 https://casetext.com/case/chadwick-v-janecka-3 Again, the point of the confinement isn't just the amount of money at stake, and it's certainly not about retribution. It's that if everybody thought they could defy court orders this way (e.g. decide that $2.5 million is worth 18 months confinement) then courts would have diminished powers to vindicate other people's rights. I understand people's fear of this kind of state-sanctioned power, but imagine how much more fearful people would be if courts were toothless and victims resorted to mafia-style coercion. The choice here isn't some anarchist utopia vs a dystopian state; it's a choice between the rule of law (which will never be perfect), and extrajudicial enforcers. This is especially true when we're talking about the kind of money that's at stake in these cases. Poor people resort to street justice all the time, for better or worse. But when millionaires start doing it, that's how you get a collapsed state. And ask anyone who lives in a collapsed state how safe they feel.