Is Thomas Gilbert Jr. Competent To Stand Trial For His Father's Murder?

Thomas Gilbert Jr.
Trial - Princeton Grad Risks Losing Insanity Defense for His Father's Murder 5/24/17, 5)06 PM
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Is Thomas Gilbert Jr. Competent to Stand Trial

For His Father's Murder?
Lawyers for the privileged son of Wall Street fixture Thomas Gilbert Sr. claim he's mentally
unfit.
by JOHN GLATT MAY 24, 2017
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Thomas Gilbert Jr. Trial - Princeton Grad Risks Losing Insanity Defense for His Father's Murder 5/24/17, 5)06 PM
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THOMAS GILBERT, JR. AT A COURT APPEARANCE IN 2015, FOLLOWING HIS ARREST ON

CHARGES OF FATALLY SHOOTING HIS FATHER, HEDGE FUND MANAGER THOMAS
GILBERT, SR.
GETTY
Thomas Gilbert Jr. awaits trial for his father's murder.
The Deerfield and Princeton grad has spent 2 1/2 Year in Rikers prison as lawyers
debate his mental fitness.
A judge has ordered him to see psychiatrists or risk losing his right to an insanity
defense.
t about 3:30 P.M. on Sunday January 4, 2015, Thomas Gilbert Jr. arrived
A unannounced at his parents’ eighth floor apartment on Beekman Place, and

asked his mother to go out and buy him a sandwich. Four days earlier his
father Thomas Sr., a long-respected figure on Wall Street and the founder of the Wainscott
Capital Partners Fund, had quietly celebrated his 70th birthday.
But Thomas Sr.'s handsome 30-year-old son, a failed day trader whom he still supported,
had not come to pay his respects. According to Manhattan homicide detectives, the
troubled young man had a loaded .40 caliber Glock handgun and fatally shot his father in
the head. He then placed the gun on his father’s chest and positioned his left hand around it
in a staged suicide, before fleeing the apartment and barricading himself into his Chelsea
apartment.
Minutes after the slaying, Shelley Gilbert discovered her husband’s body on the bedroom
floor with a single bullet wound in his head and dialed 911. Later that night her only son
was arrested, after police broke down the door of his apartment and discovered .40 caliber
ammunition, a Glock gun box, handcuffs and a credit-card-skimming device with 21 blank
credit cards.
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Thomas Gilbert Tells DA We Both Went to Buckley
The inexplicable patricide made lurid front page headlines for days, bewildering New York
society in which the Gilbert family had long been fixtures. Soon it emerged that the young
Gilbert, known to everyone as Tommy, was also being investigated by Southampton police
in connection with the arson of the historic 17th century house in Sagaponack that
belonged to Gilbert's estranged best friend, Peter Smith Jr., and that Smith had taken out a
restraining order against Tommy.
Now, almost two-and-a-half-years later, Tommy remains in Rikers without a trial date,
charged with murder and possessing a loaded firearm and a forgery device. Whether or not
he murdered his father has never been at issue. But the question of his competency to stand
trial is quite another matter.
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THOMAS GILBERT, JR. BEING WALKED INTO CENTRAL BOOKING AT MANHATTAN

CRIMINAL COURT FOLLOWING HIS ARREST FOR HIS FATHER’S MURDER.
GETTY
Blond, blue-eyed and six feet three inches tall, Tommy grew up in extreme privilege,
attending Buckley and Deerfield Academy before following his father to Princeton, where
he majored in economics. Tommy’s high profile criminal attorney Alex Spiro, who has a
degree in psychiatry from Harvard, is pursuing a psychological defense. He claims his client
is mentally unfit to stand trial.
In the months following the murder, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Melissa Jackson, a
great granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt, ordered a psychiatric evaluation to determine
if Tommy, who has pleaded not guilty, is competent to stand trial. Two court-ordered
psychiatrists examined Tommy and declared him incompetent, before Manhattan assistant
district attorney Craig Ortner challenged the findings. He had Tommy reexamined by
psychologist Dr. Stuart Kirschner, who declared him fit for trial.
To be legally competent a defendant must be able to understand the charges against him
and courtroom procedure, and to participate effectively in his own defense, all of which
Kirschner believed Tommy to be capable of. It is quite possible for someone suffering from
serious mental health illness to still be declared fit for trial.
After an exhaustive nine day hearing in the winter of 2015, Justice Jackson found Tommy
competent and ready to proceed to trial. In her written decision she expressed surprise at
having someone with Tommy’s impeccable social pedigree before her.
“Defendant’s appearance alone is remarkable in a criminal courtroom,” she wrote. “A

graduate of the most exclusive schools on the East Coast, with a degree from Princeton
University.”
In the 15 months since her decision, defense attorney Alex Spiro has repeatedly asked the
judge to have Tommy undergo more psychological tests, insisting his client is delusional
and refuses to cooperate with him.
In April 2016, Justice Jackson ordered him retested during a hearing.
“It suggests acute psychosis,” Spiro told Justice Jackson. “He can’t communicate with me.
He’s completely unfit.”
But prosecutor Ortner objected. “I think a bit of perspective is in order,” he countered, “or
we will find ourselves in an endless cycle of [competency] exams and possibly hearings.”
Last August, after a further round of psychiatric examinations, Tommy was again found fit
to stand trial. But in order for him to be granted a psychological defense, Tommy must be
tested by a prosecution expert. So far he has refused to submit to testing on two occasions,
and now risks losing his insanity defense.
At the last hearing on April 18, 2017, Tommy was led into the courtroom in handcuffs,
wearing light brown jail garb, his long, straggly hair way past his shoulders and sporting a
bushy beard. His mother sat in the courtroom, as she has for almost every hearing.
Spiro requested yet another competency test for his client, citing a sworn affidavit from
another Rikers’ inmate that Tommy was refusing to be tested, as he believed the district
attorney’s doctors were imposters.
Justice Jackson refused. She told Tommy that she was giving him one final opportunity to
meet with the prosecution expert or he would forfeit his psychological defense and proceed
to trial.
“I’m willing to give you another chance to do the interview,” Justice Jackson told him. “So I
want you to think carefully. You’re a very intelligent man and you should be aware of the
risks and consequences. So do you want me to give you another chance.”
Tommy nodded from the defense bench.
“So Mr. Gilbert is nodding an affirmation,” said Jackson. “For the record I’ve spoken to Mr.
Gilbert and he says he understands the risks involved. This is going to be your final chance
and then I’ll move the case along.”
Hedge Fund Founder's Son Allegedly Killed Father Over

Allowance
John Glatt is an investigative journalist and New York Times-bestselling author of 25 books.
He is presently working on a book about the Thomas Gilbert Jr. case for St. Martin's Press.
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Thomas Gilbert Jr.

Is Thomas Gilbert Jr. Competent to Stand Trial

by JOHN GLATT MAY 24, 2017

THOMAS GILBERT, JR. AT A COURT APPEARANCE IN 2015, FOLLOWING HIS ARREST ON

Thomas Gilbert Jr. awaits trial for his father's murder.

A unannounced at his parents’ eighth floor apartment on Beekman Place, and

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELO

Thomas Gilbert Tells DA We Both Went to Buckley

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELO

THOMAS GILBERT, JR. BEING WALKED INTO CENTRAL BOOKING AT MANHATTAN

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELO

“Defendant’s appearance alone is remarkable in a criminal courtroom,” she wrote. “A

In April 2016, Justice Jackson ordered him retested during a hearing.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELO

Tommy nodded from the defense bench.

Hedge Fund Founder's Son Allegedly Killed Father Over

WHO IS THE REAL ANASTASIA ROMANOV?

JOHN F. KENNEDY JR. HATED THE NICKNAME JOHN-JOHN

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING B

Dina Merrill Dies at 93 A Sinkhole Has Opened At Mar-a-Lago

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELO

THESE SOCIAL OUTCASTS AVOIDED DAMAGED REPUTATIONS

HOW BERNIE MADOFF'S ACTIONS DESTROYED HIS SONS' LIVES

THOMAS GILBERT, JR. ACCUSES SNL CAST OF MAKING FUN OF HIM

WE MISS 'SOCIALITE RANK', THE ANONYMOUS WEBSITE ABOUT NYC ELITE

SHELLEY GILBERT THOMAS GILBERT SR. THOMAS GILBERT JR.

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©2017 Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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