Bitter husband claims he threw $500,000 worth of gold in the trash to stop his wife getting it in divorce Earl Ray Jones, 52, claims to have thrown away $500,000 worth of gold into a dumpster Jones says he converted savings belonging to himself and his wife of 25 years into gold He claims to have thrown the money away so that his wife would not get any in the couple's divorce settlement A Colorado man has claimed that he converted $500,000 in life savings into gold in May - and threw the lot away. Earl Ray Jones, 52, told a court in July that he threw the treasure into a dumpster behind a Colorado Springs motel to prevent his wife of 25 years getting her share in their divorce settlement. Jones supplied bank records to prove that the money was indeed converted into gold by a Phoenix, Arizona precious metals dealer. Unhappy marriage: Earl Ray Jones was arrested for beating and imprisoning his wife But whether or not Jones really has relieved himself of the gold has not yet been established. 'Damn right I did,' The Gazette reports the 52-year-old former defense contractor huffed at a July deposition. There were no witnesses to the disposal, said Jones, and he did not take any steps to document it. Jones has been held at the Teller County jail since his September conviction for menacing his now-estranged wife. He is due to be sentenced November 4 for beating his wife and holding her captive in their Divide home during a March fight over what The Gazette reports was finances. Jones' wife, April Jones, filed for divorce three weeks after the assault. Court records show that Jones resigned his $82,000 a year job as a Colorado Springs contractor when his conviction threatened his government security clearance. After April Jones filed for divorce, Earl Ray Jones (no relation to the actor of the same name) stayed temporarily at Value Place, a weekly-rate motel. All that glitters: Jones can prove he converted $500,000 into gold, but he has no proof he threw it away It is here that he says he disposed of the gold in a trash bin behind the motel. Jones said he raided the couple's retirement and investment accounts and converted them into gold through Phoenix-based CMI Gold and Silver. The company told The Gazette that under gold prices at the time, $500,000 would have fetched about 22lb of gold. April Jones' divorce attorney, John-Paul Lyle told The Gazette, 'We say that when people are divorcing, they enter a state of temporary insanity. But on a scale of 1 to 10, this is my 10. Jones told Lyle that if he could have withdrawn the money in cash, he 'would have been walking around giving people $100 bills.' According to Lyle, Jones' wife April Jones has been left 'destitute' and unable to work in her profession as a teacher due to injuries she sustained in the March assault. Buried: If Jones has indeed tossed out his own fortune, it would now be buried under tons of rubbish Value Place's trash is handled by Waste Connections of Colorado Springs. That company dumps its trash at Fountain landfill, which Ken Manzo, dictrict manager, told The Gazette accepts 30,000 tons of trash per month. Each load is dumped, compacted and covered with dirt. While anything dumped at the landfill is technically the property of the landfill's owner, Jones disposed of his wife's share of the gold unlawfully, so she should still be entitled to it if it were ever recovered. Colorado Springs attorney Phil Dubois told The Gazette that it's unlikely Jones would have sacrificed the money. 'Based on normal human conduct, one would believe that it's out there somewhere, and that he knows where it is,' Dubois said.