President Donald Trump granted clemency to private equity executive David Gentile just days into his sentence, a White House official confirmed to the Epoch Times on Nov. 30.
“President Trump issued a commutation for David Gentile,” the White House official wrote in a statement on Sunday.
Gentile, the former CEO and cofounder of GPB Capital Holdings, reported to prison on Nov. 14 after he was convicted on Aug. 1, 2025 of all charges relating to “a years-long scheme to defraud more than 10,000 investors” out of $1.6 billion.
Prosecutors accused Gentile and codefendant Ascendant Capital LLC CEO Jeffry Schneider of misrepresenting “the source of funds used to make monthly distribution payments and the amount of revenue generated by three of GPB’s investment funds” between August 2015 and December 2018.
The White House defended the actions of Gentile and claimed the former executive “explicitly told investors” what he was doing.
The Sunday statement to the Epoch Times added that Gentile “pooled investors’ funds to acquire stakes in mature companies in the automotive, retail, healthcare, housing, and other industries. Following its founding in 2013, GPB collected more than $1.8 billion in capital.”
“Unlike similar companies, GPB paid regular annualized distributions to its investors. 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,” the statement said.
Prosecutors during the eight-week trial accused Gentile of building GPB Capital “on a foundation of lies,” and he was convicted of securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, and wire fraud.
“This claim was profoundly undercut by the fact that GPB had explicitly told investors what would happen,” the White House official stated to The Epoch Times.
“At trial, the government was unable to tie any supposedly fraudulent representations to Mr. Gentile. Mr. Gentile also raised serious concerns that the government had elicited false testimony and failed to correct such testimony.”
United States District Judge Rachel P. Kovner on May 9, 2025 sentenced Gentile to seven years in prison and Schneider to six years in prison, which is less than half of the maximum of 20 years in prison they each faced.
Santos was ordered to be released immediately from his seven-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty in August 2024 to fraud and identity theft.
