Trump commutes 7-year prison sentence of former private equity CEO David Gentile days after his sentence began

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has commuted the seven-year sentence of former private equity CEO David Gentile days after he reported to prison, a White House official confirmed.

Gentile was sentenced in May to seven years in prison on wire and security fraud charges. He began his sentence on Nov. 14 and was released on Nov. 26, Bureau of Prisons spokesman Donald Murphy said. The White House pardon czar, Alice Marie Johnson, also confirmed Gentile's release in a post on X.

Gentile was the CEO and co-founder of GPB Capital Holdings and was convicted by a federal jury in August 2024 of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, which brought the indictment during the Biden administration, said at the time that the "charges related to a years-long scheme to defraud more than 10,000 investors by misrepresenting the source of funds used to make monthly distribution payments and the amount of revenue generated by three of GPB’s investment funds."

Gentile was charged and convicted alongside Jeffry Schneider, the owner of a marketing firm, who prosecutors said marketed GPB funds to investors.

The White House official disputed the charges brought by the Biden DOJ. The official said GPB paid regular annualized distributions to its investors and in 2015, the company "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 official said. "This claim was profoundly undercut by the fact that GPB had explicitly told investors what would happen. 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."

Gentile's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his release.

New York Attorney General Letitia James had also sued Gentile and other co-defendants in 2021 over the scheme. The lawsuit is still pending. A source familiar with James' case told NBC News that the attorney general’s office is aware of Trump’s commutation, and the source said it doesn’t change the merits of the civil case against Gentile.

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Trump has granted pardons and other acts of clemency to hundreds of people since taking office in January, beginning with around 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants and including many people convicted of fraud since then

In April, Trump pardoned Paul Walczak, who was convicted on tax charges. Walczak's mother contributed millions of dollars to Trump’s presidential campaign.

In May, Trump pardoned and commuted the sentences of former reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Also in May, he pardoned former GOP Rep. Michael Grimm of New York, who was sentenced in 2015 to eight months on a tax fraud charge.

In October, Trump released former GOP Rep. George Santos of New York from prison. Santos was serving a sentence of over seven years on wire fraud and identity theft charges.

Later in October, Trump pardoned billionaire crypto executive Changpeng Zhao, who founded the Binance crypto exchange. Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty in a deal with the Justice Department to enabling money laundering at Binance.