The son of a hedge fund founder remains in custody for his father's death, and now it appears that a motive is emerging: Apparently Thomas GIlbert Sr. had cut son Tommy's allowance by $100 or $200—and was also threatening to stop paying rent on his Chelsea apartment.
Gilbert, 70, was found dead in his Beekman Place apartment yesterday afternoon. At a press conference today, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said that the younger Gilbert visited his parents' home at 20 Beekman Place and asked his mother to go buy him food. After getting a "bad feeling" about it, she returned to find her husband lying on the floor with a gunshot wound to his head. He was apparently posed with the gun on his chest in an attempt to make it look like a suicide.
Tommy Gilbert, 30, was no longer in the apartment. Police tracked his cellphone to his apartment on West 18th Street, and found the younger Gilbert barricaded inside. A case for the gun was reportedly found in the apartment as well.
A source told the Post that the elder Gilbert "was cutting his allowance. He had been giving him $2,400 a month for rent and $600 for spending money, and he was cutting that to $400 a month for spending money." The Daily News' sources say the allowance was being cut from $400/week to $300/week and that Gilbert Sr. was threatening to cut the rent allowance as well.
Thomas Gilbert Sr. was founder of Wainscott Capital and attender Andover, Princeton and Harvard Business School. Bloomberg notes, "The son, a graduate of Deerfield Academy and Princeton University, according to his Facebook page, had made preparations to follow in his father’s money-management footsteps. In May of last year he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise money for a hedge fund, Mameluke Capital."
