James K. Hoffmeier describes him as "a former Los Angeles SWAT policeman and more recently a real estate agent" in his 2005 book Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition.
[3] Cornuke claims to have discovered the anchors from the Apostle Paul’s shipwreck in Marsaskala, as described in the Bible's Book of Acts, chapter 27 — by searching the sea floor off the coast of Malta.
Cornuke's book, In Search of the Mountain of God, claimed to match of the biblical Mount Sinai to Jabal al-Lawz in Saudi Arabia.
[8] In 2003 Christianity Today reported that the then U.S. ambassador Kathryn Proffitt sued Cornuke to stop the sale of his book after she arranged for the "Maltese government to pardon the fisherman.
Even still, "what the Maltese government is apparently upset about, however, isn't that Cornuke's book was published without its permission, but that it claims that the shipwreck never happened in the traditional site on the northeastern tip of the island, now known as St. Paul's Bay.