Thomas Gilbert Jr., the spoiled Princeton graduate who murdered his father because his allowance was being cut, was sentenced to 30 years behind bars in New York City on Friday.
The 34-year-old was given five years for every time he shot his father, Thomas Gilbert Sr., in 2015 in their Upper East Side Home after arguing with him because he threatened to cut his allowance.
Gilbert Jr. had tried to plead not guilty by way of insanity but it was rejected by the court because he had sent his mother, Shelley, out to fetch him a Coca Cola and a sandwich before he opened fire on his father.
The extra effort he went to to get her out of the way proved pre-meditation.
On Friday, Shelley addressed the court.
She asked the judge for leniency and requested that he be jailed somewhere nearby so that she could visit him.
Gilbert Jr., shot his father, Thomas Sr., in the head at his Upper East Side Home.
Thomas Gilbert Jr. arrives in court in Manhattan on Friday to be sentenced for murdering his father in 2015. He was jailed for 30 years to life
Gilbert Jr., now 34, shot his father, Thomas Sr, 70, in 2015 in his parents’ Upper East Side home after being told his allowance was being cut again
He then staged the scene to make it look like a suicide.
He claimed it was a moment of insanity and that he was in the midst of a psychotic break. Prosecutors said it was nothing of the sort.
‘The defendant rejected hard work, instead, preferring an easy life handed to him on a silver platter,’ prosecutors said during the trial.
At the time of the murder, Gilbert Jr. was 30, living off his parents and spending most of his time surfing
Thomas Sr. had been gradually reducing his son’s $1,000-a-week allowance, he said, and on the day he died, he told him the help was over for good.
He had just reduced it from $400 to $300.
‘The free ride was going to an end,’ Ortner said, adding: ‘It wasn’t a symptom of psychosis, it was a symptom of entitlement.’
Gilbert Sr. had recently set up a hedge fund but had been turned down for a $1.5million loan to finance it.
Until then, Thomas Jr. had lived off his parents lavishly, traveling the world on their money.
They paid for his memberships to exclusive clubs in the city and the Hamptons, paid his rent on his Chelsea apartment, his Jeep and all of the parking tickets he incurred with it.
The defense claimed that he was unable to keep a job because he was schizophrenic and that his parents supported him because of it.
The Princeton graduate is pictured on Friday arriving in the court to be sentenced
Shelley Gilbert, Thomas’ mother, is pictured at court. She asked the judge to show her son leniency and said she wanted him to be jailed somewhere close to where she lives
His mother Shelley testified for the defense and said he was mentally ill.
Gilbert Jr. in 2014, a year before the murder
‘Tommy was far sicker than we ever really knew,’ she said earlier this year.
It was Shelley who called 911.
In her recorded call, she told the operator when asked who had shot her husband: ‘My son. He’s nuts, but I didn’t know he was this nuts.
‘He shot him in the head.’
Gilbert Jr. used a 40-caliber Glock, which he had driven to Ohio to buy to commit the killing.
Beforehand, he had researched websites such as ‘hireakiller.com’ and ‘hitman.com’.
Gilbert Jr.’s old roommate testified at the trial that he had tried to kill him ‘several times’.