President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of Manhasset’s David Gentile less than two weeks after the former private equity executive began serving a seven-year sentence for a multi-year, $1.6 billion fraud scheme that conned more than 10,000 investors. The White House confirmed Trump’s action to Schneps Media Long Island Monday.
Gentile, 58, a Manhasset resident and the founder, owner and former chief executive officer of GPB Capital Holdings, had been found guilty in August 2024 after an eight-week trial in federal court in Brooklyn.
He was convicted alongside Texas resident Jeffry Schneider, 56, the owner and CEO of Ascendant Capital LLC, for their joint scam. Schneider was sentenced to six years in prison.
The pair were convicted of all charges brought against them. That included conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud. Gentile was convicted on two additional counts of wire fraud.
Gentile and Schneider defrauded the 10,000 victims by misrepresenting fund sources to make monthly distribution payments, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The two also misrepresented revenue amounts from GPB’s three investment funds.
A White House representative said that at the trial, the government was unable to tie any supposedly fraudulent representations to Gentile and that he raised “serious concerns that the government had elicited false testimony and failed to correct such testimony.”
“Unlike similar companies, GPB paid regular annualized distributions to its investors,” the representative told Schneps Media. “In 2015, GPB disclosed to investors the possibility of using investor capital to pay some of these distributions rather than funding them from current operations. Even though this was disclosed to investors, the Biden Department of Justice claimed this was a Ponzi scheme.”
GPB, a New York-based investment adviser registered with the SEC, was founded by Gentile in 2013. GPB partnered with Ascendant Capital, a marketing firm founded by Schneider for dealing with investors.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office had said the two worked closely together in this scheme, which lasted from August 2015 through December 2018.
But shortfalls occurred, prosecutors said, which led to Gentile and Schenider using back-dated documents and paying investor distributions out of investor capital to cover the gap.
Investor capital paid for a “significant portion” of distributions made to investors, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Federal prosecutors said both knew that the funds were insufficient but OK’d the fraudulent distribution payments.
GPB Operating Partner Jeffrey Lash, who was also involved in the scheme, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2023 and will be sentenced at a later date.
