To the untrained eye, the Bahia Emerald is not much to look at. At a portly 840 pounds, the black slab is pocked with divots, while crude green formations jut from its midsection like stubby arms.

But how it has made men swoon.

So much so that two South Bay men - once friends - find themselves at the center of a legal battle over the ownership of the monster emerald, which is believed to be among the world's largest and was once appraised at $925 million.

The lore attached to Bahia is just as big and twisted as the gem itself. First plucked from the Brazilian Amazon in 2001, it has had no fewer than nine self-proclaimed owners belly up.

During its travels through the United States, it was submerged in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, was allegedly stolen from a Los Angeles vault, briefly visited Las Vegas, and even made an appearance on eBay. ("Buy it now" price: $75 million.)

Now, it's resting in the custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department as a byzantine court trial in that city resumes in mid-December.

"It brings to mind whether the Bahia is a jinxed item of commerce," observed Eric Kitchen, an attorney representing Kenneth Conetto, 67, of San Jose, one of the two men who were once friends.

"But I will never subscribe to it," Kitchen said. "It is a magnificent creation nurtured by the earth for 2 billion years. If anything, it is the human attitude toward it that is jinxed."

A 'big ol' mother'

The saga began nine years ago, when Conetto, an eccentric entrepreneur who owns stakes in gold and silica mines across the globe, said a Brazilian mine he co-owns - not by paper, but by handshake - produced the enormous find.

At first, Conetto was disappointed.

"It was not of high-grade quality so it couldn't be cut into smaller stones for jewelry," he said. "It was a big ol' mother, though."

Conetto said he invited his onetime friend and business associate, Anthony Thomas, to Brazil to view the stone and help find a buyer. Conetto figured a museum or private collector might covet it as a novelty.

Thomas, a Morgan Hill businessman and collector of geological specimens, traveled to South America with grand ideas of buying the Bahia himself. When he saw the slab, he said, he instinctually threw an arm around it and posed for pictures - evidence he'd later enter into the court record.

"The earth doesn't typically make emeralds this big," Thomas recalled. "I saw the value in it immediately."

What happened next will be sorted out by Superior Court Judge John Kronstadt.

Competing versions

According to Conetto, his friend never found a buyer, so Conetto shipped the rock to his Sao Paulo warehouse - where it sat for four years.

Thomas, though, said that after he returned to the United States, he wired Conetto $60,000 for the Bahia and awaited delivery. For months, he said, he asked Conetto why the rock hadn't arrived, and each time the miner blew him off - until finally telling him it was stolen during transit.

"They didn't know what they sold me," Thomas said. "When they realized what they sold me, then they stole it from me."

"If he bought it," Conetto retorted, "how come the jerk ball didn't leave with it?"

Thomas said he hired an appraiser who placed the stone's value at $925 million.

"You make your own luck in life," he said. "And I got lucky."

It would be seven years until he'd glimpse the Bahia again.

Drowned by Katrina

In 2005, after the Bahia had made a brief stay in a San Jose warehouse, Conetto said he shipped it to New Orleans for a viewing by potential buyers at a vault.

Yet days after its arrival, Hurricane Katrina struck and submerged the vault for two years. After an excavation that required feats of engineering - "We had to pay $10,000 to get it out," Conetto huffed - the stone was off to Los Angeles for yet another vault display.

There, Conetto said a buyer put down a $1.2 million deposit on what was supposed to be an $80 million payday - and then made off with the stone.

According to court documents, the Bahia then changed hands a number of times, and was used as collateral in a variety of business transactions that left more litigants claiming ownership.

The emerald briefly showed up on eBay, where one purported owner claimed the stone's miners were attacked by black panthers as they smuggled it out of the jungle.

By the time it turned up in Las Vegas in 2008, the tangled web of ownership had spawned a flurry of lawsuits. Authorities decided to intervene, with members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department major crimes task force escorting the stone back to California, where it will reside until the conclusion of the trial.

"We don't know its condition," Kitchen said, "and that's worrisome."

Giving it all away?

Conetto said he's become so disillusioned with the whole affair that he's not worried about cashing in. If he wins the case, he said, he'll sell the emerald and give the spoils to charity.

"We Americans are already viewed as the greediest bastards in the world," Conetto said. "Why don't we make something positive out of this and show people we can actually do some good. We don't have to walk around with our butts in the air."

Such a benevolent claim rings hollow to Thomas. In court, the gem collector accused Conetto and the other buyers of conspiring against him, purposely tossing the stone around in an attempt to confuse the chain of ownership.

But while Thomas has loaded the court record with receipts of plane tickets to Brazil, records of wire transfers and certified appraisals, he's failed to show one critical piece of evidence: the bill of sale.

Thomas said he lost the piece of paper in a 2006 house fire - a blaze that he alleges his former friend Conetto set, driven in a mad quest to possess the Bahia.

"But it's my emerald," Thomas said, "and I'm going to get it back."