President Trump has commuted the sentence of convicted Long Island fraudster David Gentile, the White House confirmed Monday.
Gentile, 59, reported to prison on Nov. 14 but was freed before Thanksgiving, less than two weeks into his seven-year sentence, according to federal officials.
Last year, Gentile was convicted on multiple fraud charges in a $1.6 billion Ponzi scheme surrounding his private equity company, GBP Holdings. His sentencing hearing was held in May 2025, alongside fellow GBP executive Jeffry Schneider.
“For years, David Gentile and Jeffry Schneider wove a web of lies to steal more than one billion dollars from investors through empty promises of guaranteed profits and unlawfully rerouting funds to provide an illusion of success,” FBI agent Christopher Raia said at the time.
Trump’s decision to free Gentile was the latest of several pardons and commutations for white collar criminals. Just last month, he pardoned former Tennessee house speaker Glen Casada, a Republican, on fraud and public corruption charges.
Gentile and other GBP executives were first charged with fraud in 2021. Federal investigators said that between 2015 and 2018, they promised new investors 8% annual returns. However, to meet those promises, they took money from new investors in the style of a classic Ponzi scheme, according to the feds.
“The sentences imposed today are well deserved and should serve as a warning to would-be fraudsters that seeking to get rich by taking advantage of investors gets you only a one-way ticket to jail,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said in May.
But the White House did not see it that way. An anonymous White House official told multiple outlets on Sunday and Monday that Gentile’s scheme did not count as a “Ponzi” scheme because GBP Holdings disclosed to investors that their funds may be used to pay other investors beginning in 2015.
GBP was also the subject of several civil cases from investors who sought some of their money back, which Trump’s commutation does not cover. At trial, more than 1,000 fraud victims submitted statements to the court, according to prosecutors.
“At 71 years old I do not have time or physical capabilities to rebuild the quarter of a million dollars that you swindled from me,” one person wrote.
With News Wire Services
