Thomas Gilbert’s Son Officially Charged With Murder

As reported earlier this week by the Inquisitr, Wainscott Capital Partners Fund founder Thomas Gilbert, 70, was found murdered in his Beekman Place apartment in New York City on Sunday. Gilbert’s son, Thomas “Tommy” Gilbert Jr., 30, has now officially been charged with his murder.

Immediately following the incident, it was said that Thomas Jr. was under suspicion for the murder and was on the run. According to law enforcement officials, Gilbert Jr. was apprehended Monday and arrested at his apartment, where he had barricaded himself for hours. Police were forced to chop down the door to arrest him.

Two magazines of ammunition and a shell matching the.40 caliber hand gun found at the crime scene were inside the apartment. Also found inside were “a skimmer device and 21 blank credit cards.” A skimmer is a fraud device used to steal credit- and debit-card information. As of Tuesday morning, Thomas Gilbert Jr. has been arraigned and charged with second-degree murder, as well as weapons offenses and forgery-related offenses.

Police officials were called to Gilbert Sr.’s home on Sunday afternoon by Gilbert’s wife. According to her statement to the N.Y.P.D., she had been sent from the opulent East Side apartment by her son to purchase food, but returned just 15 minutes later following a “bad feeling” she had about the situation. There she found the body of her husband in their bedroom with a gunshot wound to the head and his left hand covering a gun on his chest. Gilbert Jr. was seen leaving the building with a hood pulled over his face.

Officers immediately surmised that the scene was staged to look like a suicide.

Robert Boyce, the N.Y.P.D.’s Chief of Detectives, stated that “The gun, laying where it was, didn’t seem [consistent with] a self-inflicted wound.”

Initially, no motive was known for the murder, but sources have since revealed that money may have been the cause of an argument between father and son. Gilbert’s mother stated that Thomas Jr. confronted his father in the bedroom to “discuss their relationship.”

“He was on a stipend from the family. Looks like he was in debt,” Detective Boyce said of Gilbert Jr.

According to a police source, Gilbert Jr.’s parents told him they were cutting his $400 a week allowance by $100. They also told him they would no longer pay the rent on his apartment in a Chelsea building. Rents in the area average around $3,100 a month. Gilbert Jr. was used to an expensive lifestyle and attended an elite boarding school, as well as Princeton where he graduated in 2009. He was known for his socialite lifestyle and was often pictured around Manhattan attending events and going to clubs.

Beyond being charged for Gilbert Sr.’s murder, as well as fraud charges, Thomas Gilbert Jr.’s future it as yet unknown.

[Images courtesy of New York Daily News]