Gilbert ’09 sentenced to life with possible parole for murdering his father

In late June, a jury found Thomas Gilbert, Jr., ’09 guilty of second-degree murder and gun charges. A judge sentenced him on Friday to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

According to The New York Times, Gilbert fatally shot his father with a semi-automatic pistol in his parents’ Midtown Manhattan apartment, in 2015. Several hours before the murder, Gilbert’s father had reduced his son’s weekly allowance of $1,000 to $300.

Gilbert attempted to stage the murder as a suicide by placing the gun in his father’s hand.

The elder Thomas Gilbert, a wealthy Wall Street hedge-fund banker, graduated from the University in 1966. He died at the age of 70.

His son had long struggled with mental illness. After graduating from the University with a degree in economics, he was unable to keep a steady job and relied on assistance from his parents.

According to CNN, emails between Gilbert and his parents that were shown in court depicted a “tumultuous” relationship. Gilbert constantly asked for money, “sometimes forwarding past-due bills from an exclusive athletic and social club for thousands of dollars to his mother.”

In 2015, a psychologist deemed the younger Gilbert fit to stand trial, finding no evidence of psychosis or any symptoms of “a mental disorder that would impact on his ability to proceed to trial.” During the trial, the jury rejected the insanity defense Gilbert’s lawyers put forth. Instead, they were swayed by the picture the prosecution painted of Gilbert as a calculating sociopath.

Gilbert’s lawyers, as well as his own mother, unsuccessfully tried to reduce Gilbert’s sentence or commit him to a mental institution in lieu of prison.