Washington, D.C. – President Donald Trump has commuted the seven-year prison sentence of David Gentile, the former CEO and co-founder of GPB Capital Holdings, just days after the convicted fraudster began serving time for orchestrating a $1.6 billion Ponzi-like scheme that defrauded more than 17,000 retail investors.
Gentile, 59, reported to the low-security federal prison in Otisville, New York, on November 14, 2025. He was released on November 26 — Thanksgiving Day — after spending only 12 days incarcerated, according to Bureau of Prisons records and a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The commutation, which halts further incarceration and supervised release but leaves the conviction intact, was announced quietly over the holiday weekend and immediately triggered widespread condemnation from victims, their attorneys, and investor advocates.
Gentile and his business partner Jeffry Schneider were convicted in August 2024 in Brooklyn federal court of securities fraud and wire fraud. Prosecutors proved that GPB Capital, which raised approximately $1.6 billion from everyday investors by promising steady 8% annual returns, operated as a Ponzi-like scheme: new investor money was used to pay “distributions” to earlier investors while the company vastly overstated the performance and value of its portfolio of auto dealerships, waste-management companies, and other businesses.
At Gentile’s sentencing in May 2025, U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan received more than 1,000 victim-impact statements — an unusually large number that the judge described as unprecedented in his three decades on the bench. Victims included retirees, teachers, widows, and small-business owners who lost life savings, college funds, and retirement nest eggs.
“I lost my whole life savings. I am living from check to check,” wrote one victim. Another, a 68-year-old widow, explained that her $250,000 investment — intended to cover future medical expenses — vanished, forcing her to sell her home.
Adam Gana, a securities attorney representing hundreds of defrauded investors in ongoing FINRA arbitrations, expressed fury at the commutation.
“The stories that we’ve heard are just heartbreaking, and it’s just unbelievable that somebody like that would receive a commutation,” Gana told The New York Times. “This is not a case that should be political. This guy belongs in prison.”
The White House defended the decision, with an anonymous official telling reporters that the Justice Department’s characterization of GPB as a Ponzi scheme had been “profoundly undercut” by the company’s own 2015 disclosures, which warned investors that new capital could be used to fund distributions — a disclosure the administration argued made the payments lawful. The official further claimed that prosecutors had elicited inaccurate testimony at trial and failed to correct it.
Jeffry Schneider, Gentile’s co-defendant and the former head of Ascendant Capital (the marketing firm that sold GPB funds), received an identical seven-year sentence and remains in federal custody. The starkly different outcomes for the two men convicted in the same trial have fueled questions about why only Gentile was granted clemency.
The swift release has reignited anger among the thousands of investors still pursuing partial recoveries through civil lawsuits and arbitrations, many of whom have so far recouped less than half of their losses. For them, Gentile’s 12 days in prison stand in bitter contrast to the years of financial hardship they have endured since GPB collapsed in 2018.
The case also highlights ongoing concerns about regulatory gaps that allow private-equity and alternative-investment firms to target retail investors with complex, illiquid products once reserved for wealthy or institutional clients. The Securities and Exchange Commission fined GPB $1.5 million in 2020 and has since tightened disclosure rules, but many advocates argue far more protection is still needed.
As President Trump’s second term nears its conclusion, the commutation of David Gentile’s sentence adds another controversial entry to a clemency record that has frequently favored white-collar offenders and political allies. For the more than 17,000 Americans who entrusted their savings to GPB Capital, the sudden freedom granted to the man held responsible for their ruin feels like the final betrayal in a decade-long ordeal.
