Despite pleas from his mother Shelley Gilbert, her son Thomas Gilbert Jr. was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for the execution murder of his father. The spark that set off the slaying? A threat by Thomas Gilbert Sr. to cut off his son’s allowance.
The 70-year-old founder of Wainscott Capital Partners was discovered dead in his apartment in Manhattan in January 2015, with son Thomas being taken into custody the night of the slaying according to ABC News. The murder was over Gilbert Jr.’s allowance between “$300 and $1000” and the rent for his Chelsea studio apartment. Prosecutors claim he attempted to throw off the investigation at first by making the death seem like a suicide. But a search of the apartment uncovered the murder weapon, with more details coming clear.
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“The gun was resting on his chest with his left hand covering it,” according to NYPD Chief of Investigations Robert Boyce during a press conference at the time, calling it a “staged crime scene.”
Thomas Gilbert Jr., who was convicted of killing his father after the older man cut back his weekly allowance, was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. https://t.co/KsVGZnA0YM
— CNN (@CNN) September 28, 2019
“My husband would still be alive today if we got him to a psychiatric hospital 15 years ago,” Shelley Gilbert read from her prepared statement in court during her son’s sentencing. “I ask you, judge, to put him in a psychiatric hospital somewhere close to home so we can visit him. I knew if my husband can speak from heaven, he would say this is wrong. This is exactly what my husband would have wanted.”
The pleas did not work on the prosecution or the jury. They deliberated for two days before convicting Gilbert Jr. of second-degree murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon according to ABC News. A defense based on mental illness was attempted, but certain actions before the murder forced the jury to dismiss these claims.
“He may have psychiatric problems, and I support mental health treatment through the Department of Corrections, but he was a functioning adult when he murdered his father,” Assistant District Attorney Craig Ortner said in court. “Rather than a psychotic break, he thought of this for some time he searched for a hit man on the internet…You planned to kill your father, you had a rouse set up to get your mother out of the house, you knew exactly what you were doing you were not insane then and you’re not insane now.”
Thomas Gilbert Jr., a Princeton graduate who killed his father after he cut his weekly $1000 allowance, has been sentenced to life in prison with a possibility of parole after 30 years https://t.co/d6K9Kix63P
— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 28, 2019
61-year-old juror, Kimmy Lee agreed with the prosecution’s take, noting that his mental illness was separate from the murder.
“At first I believed he wasn’t responsible because of his mental illness, but after reading through all the manuscripts it hit me: that one line about the Coke showed that he was conscious of his actions at the time,” she told ABC News.
