Attorney Michael Emanuel is the new General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer for GPB Capital Holdings

New York City attorney and private fund expert Michael Emanuel has left the venerable 140 year-old law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan to become the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at GPB Capital Holdings. Emanuel’s short tenure at Stroock began in April 2018.

Emanuel joins a handful of other high-caliber non-Scientology lawyers who find good money working in Scientology’s orbit where the invisible hand of L. Ron Hubbard guides things from the beyond through the written policies he left behind. Of course, one can easily see the highly negative results David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology have produced by adherence to Hubbard’s policies.

Like the other non-Scientology lawyers who work in the Scientology orbit, some of Michael Emanuel’s work will consist of lining up deck chairs on the Titanic; which is to say David Gentile hired the best lawyer he could find given GPB’s present state of chaos. The fact that Stroock slashed the salary of equity partners 20% this past May might have been a factor in Emanuel’s decision to jump from Stroock, a prestigious firm that brought in $258 million in gross revenues in 2019.

Michael Emanuel’s name is no longer listed on Stroock’s website, but it is listed on GPB Capital’s most recent ADV dated August 12, 2020:

The document shows Emanuel acquired his title in August 2020.

Michael Emanuel replaces former GPB CCO Michael Cohn. As was widely reported, Cohn was charged with felony obstruction of justice related to his employment at GPB Capital Holdings. Cohn had been employed in the enforcement branch of the SEC when he is alleged to have illegally accessed confidential investigative data on GPB Capital Holdings. The allegation is that he shared that information with GPB executives and thereby acted to obstruct justice. After purportedly sharing this data during job interviews with GPB Capital, Cohn resigned from the SEC and accepted a $400,000 a year position as GPB’s Chief Compliance Officer. As reported by Law360 last week, Mr. Cohn is presently seeking a bench trial:

Law360 (August 10, 2020, 2:43 PM EDT) — A former compliance examiner accused of stealing information from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sought a rare criminal bench trial over prosecutors’ objections on Monday, saying it is the only way to hold a speedy trial during the pandemic… Cohn argued that his “constitutional right to a speedy trial and due process of law is impaired by the ongoing delay.”

Our legal experts have opined that Cohn is hoping for a shorter prison sentence in a bench trial in the event he is found guilty. Conversely, a jury of Cohn’s peers — particularly those who have been financially crippled by the pandemic — would not look kindly upon a white collar criminal who allegedly broke the law to take a $400,000 salary. The narrative prosecutors can present about Cohn would be damning in front of a jury. Of course, Cohn’s demand for a bench trial also seems to be an attempt to line up something for an appeal.

Research Notes: 

1. Scroll down to see GPB Capital Holdings ADV and Brochure Part 2 of August 12, 2020. Some of the  information in this new brochure is astonishing. In certain places, GPB’s Brochure reads like a “no contest” document in a plea bargain agreement. For example, GPB admits it is not fully in compliance with the reporting requirements of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act; the 1940 Act; and Sarbanes-Oxley. GPB also openly complains of the high costs to become compliant:

In another paragraph, GPB’s Brochure Part 2 quite openly describes the self-dealing and conflicts of interest inherent in the deliberately-constructed relationship between GPB Capital, Ascendant Alternative Strategies, and Ascendant Capital:

The document further states, “GPB’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, is an indirect minority owner of AAS (but not Ascendant Capital). Mr. Gentile is not actively involved in the day-to-day operations of AAS.”

2. Notably missing from the list of GPB executives is Evan Myrianthopoulos, the long-time head of Debt Strategies at the firm. Myrianthopoulos was previously employed as CFO at Soligenix Inc. (formerly named Dor Biopharma). Our research has shown that Soligenix Inc. leased its corporate headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey from Oestreicher Properties Inc. in 2014.

3. GPB Capital Holdings and Oestreicher Properties Inc. are partners in the  211 Schermerhorn Street  project on Boerum Hill in Brooklyn. Myrianthopoulos may have been behind the scenes in the arrangement for Soligenix to lease its headquarters from a partner of GPB Capital Holdings. This is not unexpected as existing long-term relationships very often lead to  new business opportunities. This leads to our next point:

4. Scientologist David Gentile purchased, or bought controlling interest in, several companies owned by his fellow Scientologists. This is the subject of a future article as we follow the GPB money trail into Clearwater, Florida.

4. David Gentile’s GPB Capital Holdings website has been disabled and is non-operational at this writing.

4A. Jeffry Schneider’s Ascendant Capital website has been disabled and is non-operational at this writing.

4B. Mark Martino’s Ascendant Alternative Strategies website has been disabled and is non-operational at this writing.

GPB Capital Holdings has played incessant games with its website over the past two years. We find the non-operational websites to be disgraceful. Professional firms do not engage in this type of activity.

5. GPB Capital received as much as $7 million in PPP money across all of its funds, this even as the firm is the subject of numerous investigations. This is an outrage.

6. The GPB Capital Holdings Brochure of August 12, 2020 confirms that Highline Management, Inc. has taken over the daily operations of GPB: `

Highline Management, Inc. (“Highline”) was formed in January 2020 to assume the day to day duties and responsibilities of GPB with respect to the management of the business affairs, operations and financial reporting of the various limited partnerships sponsored by GPB as well as the Portfolio Companies.

For more information on Highline Management, Inc. see our previous article: Scientologist-Owned GPB Capital Admits to Staggering Losses in Latest ADV Filing: AUM at $239 Million; Down from $1.1 Billion in July 2019

7. The new brochure describes GPB Capital Holdings excessive commissions and fees in a rather cavalier fashion — as if these excessive commissions and fees are inconsequential:

GPB Capital Holdings ADV:

GPB Capital Holdings Brochure: