Once part of Manhattan’s social elite, a 30-yr-old Princeton graduate lived off his mother and father, prosecutors say, spending his time surfing in the Hamptons — till he killed his father over a reduce to his weekly allowance.

“It wasn’t till the dad commenced slicing off his cash that the defendant decided to kill him,” stated Craig Ortner, an assistant district legal professional with the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “Literally hours before he becomes killed, (his father) also reduce his allowance to $three hundred.”
Thomas Gilbert Jr., now 34, has declined to appear in person for a whole lot of his five-week trial on prices along with murder and weapons possession. However he changed into the present for last arguments Wednesday, wearing a white button-down shirt and slacks, his gaze reduced.
Tommy, as he is regarded to family and buddies, is being held at the Rikers Island prison. Defense lawyer Arnold Levine says his client isn’t always guilty by motive of insanity and has refused to cooperate along with his attorneys.

His father, Thomas Gilbert Sr., turned into a founding dealing with a companion at Wainscott Capital, a profitable hedge fund, prosecutors say.
Thomas Jr. Is a former Princeton football participant who graduated with a degree in economics. At the time of the taking pictures in January 2015, he turned into 30 and unemployed, receiving as much as $1,000 per week from his dad and mom.

Prosecutors and his lawyers do no longer dispute that he killed his father. Jurors will instead be tasked with figuring out whether or not he is guilty of the charges — which also include counts for forgery — or now not liable through the motive of madness. The murder price contains a sentence of 25 years to existence in prison.
‘Nobody wanted to think it.’
Gilbert spent his younger years at high priced, notably selective East Coast non-public schools. His lawyer confirmed jurors snippets of his grades, SAT rankings and trainer critiques from excessive faculty.
“Tommy’s paintings — certainly his whole way — this period has been the success story I nevertheless thrill to witness,” wrote a trainer from his sophomore year.
But, Levine stated, Gilbert “deteriorated” around the time he started to attend Princeton.
“Nobody desired to examine him — that historical past, those appear, that training — and say he may be mentally sick,” Levine stated. “Nobody wanted to suppose it.”
His former therapist, Susan Evans, testified that she saw him for numerous years earlier than the taking pictures and that his preoccupation with the paranoid mind was “interfering” together with his potential to function.
“I don’t trust he was working or ever worked during that time,” Evans stated. “Earlier on, he becomes making ready inventory summary reviews for a friend of his father’s. I assume that he did not maintain that up.”
Evans endorsed that Gilbert is screened for paranoid schizophrenia within the months earlier than the incident. Other former docs testified that they prescribed him the antipsychotic medicinal drug. Evans testified that he did not take his prescribed medicinal drugs for a maximum of the time she saw him.
Emails between Gilbert and his parents that were shown in courtroom depict a tumultuous dating. He time and again requested for cash, once in a while “for a charity element,” now and then forwarding past-due payments from a distinct athletic and social club for heaps of dollars to his mother.
In October 2013, Gilbert emailed his father, asking him for space.
“The greater you recognize my area, the more I will admire you!” he wrote.
Weeks later, even though, he emailed his mother numerous times soliciting for hundreds of dollars for a storage, clothes and inventory offerings. He bought a gun within the summer time of 2014, prosecutors say, and some months later, his father began discussing decreasing his allowance.
A voicemail from Thomas Sr. Describes his desire to foster economic independence in his son, but the protection mentioned that Thomas Sr. Had thousands of bucks in credit card debt.
In October 2014, prosecutors say, Gilbert’s computer confirmed searches for websites that discussed forging tests and supplied clean take a look at templates. Some of the costs he faces stem from credit score card reproducing devices discovered at his domestic at the time of his arrest, prosecutors say.
In November 2014, prosecutors say, his laptop showed searches for websites like “Hire-a-Killer.Com” and “Find-a-Hitman.Com.”
Shortly after, Thomas Sr. Emailed his son, telling him his weekly allowance might be reduced from $800 to $600. The day of his dying, he changed his everyday deposit into his son’s account to $three hundred, bank records confirmed.
The killing
On January 4, 2015, Shelley Gilbert discovered her husband on their bed room floor of their Manhattan apartment with a gunshot wound to his head and a gun on his chest.
Minutes before, Gilbert had come in and cleared his mom out of the condo, asking her to get him a sandwich and a drink, she testified.
Levine has argued that his consumer was clinically insane during the capturing. But prosecutors and their health workers say he knew that what he become doing turned into incorrect.
Prosecutors point to surveillance photos that show Gilbert, wearing a hoodie and carrying a gym bag, entering his circle of relatives’ posh condominium constructing just after three p.M. And leaving much less than 15 mins later.
Forensic psychiatrist Jason Hershberger, who did no longer in my view examine Gilbert due to the fact he declined to be visible, testified that he had examined Gilbert’s medical records and statistics associated with the incident.
“I recognize that he shot his father,” Hershberger testified. “I recognize that his father became found as though he had shot himself. The gun turned into in his hand as though he had committed suicide. Then Thomas left the scene. He grew to become off the location reveal [on his phone]. He changed into in his domestic inside the dark while the police came to knock on his door. He pretended he wasn’t there.”

Hershberger testified that he does now not accept as true with there is evidence to assist Gilbert’s plea of not responsible with the aid of motive of madness.
“In my opinion, all of us who attempts to conceal his behavior around a crime does so due to the fact they’re privy to what they’re doing is incorrect,” he testified.
In New York, a defendant should prove their incapacity to distinguish right from incorrect to win a madness plea protection.
Gilbert becomes deemed healthy to face trial after immediate process four intellectual opinions, one of which changed into inconclusive.

His attorney argues that Gilbert’s own family attempted to get help for his mental contamination for over a decade.
“He faked being properly for 12 years,” Levine said. “He didn’t fake being unwell; he faked being well.”
Shelley Gilbert’s 911 call was performed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
When an emergency dispatcher asked who shot her husband, she spoke back, “My son, who is nuts, however, I failed to know he became this nuts.”