On the eve of his US Federal criminal trial which begins in New York on June 10, 2024 Scientologist David Gentile and his co-defendant Jeffry Schneider have barraged the court with motions in limine.
Both sides in civil and criminal cases typically file motions in limine prior to the beginning of the trial. These pretrial motions ask the court to include or exclude evidence, certain forms of testimony, and even witnesses, from the trial.
These motions are necessary to narrow the focus of the trial and to prevent extended, time-consuming, and often complex procedural and evidentiary arguments at trial in front of the jury.
In one recent motion, US Attorney Breon Peace asked Judge Kovner to preclude Gentile and Schneider from arguing that because they relied upon their attorneys for advice in managing GPB Capital and its affiliated corporate co-defendants, that they acted in good faith and committed no crimes.
This “advice-of-counsel defense” is often used in criminal trials: “My lawyers said it was okay!” This argument plays on the emotions of the jury because, fair or not, many people hate lawyers and some of this is deserved. There are some horrible skin-crawling lawyers out there. A few dozen of them, for example, work for the Church of Scientology.
The first paragraph of the Government’s letter to Judge Kovner in the matter of United States b. Gentile, et. al.:
Samuel Bankman-Fried a/k/a SBF, who was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison for his massive FTX crypto fraud, unsuccessfully attempted to use an advice-of-counsel defense at trial as part of his defense.
In its letter to the court in US v. Gentile et. al., Bankman-Fried’s attempt to use this defense is cited:
One of the problems with an advice-of-counsel defense is that corporate crooks can and do withhold information from their attorneys or simply lie to them as did Bankman-Fried. After being criminally charged, Bankman-Fried wanted a jury to hear that he relied upon his lawyers for advice.
This was a case of wanting it both ways: Lie to your lawyers and then, after being criminally indicted, tell the jury that you acted in good faith and ran everything by your lawyers. How could you possibly be guilty of anything except having relied upon your stupid and incompetent lawyers?
US Attorney Peace said as much to the court in his letter in the GPB Capital Holdings case.
This is a great piece of legal writing because US Attorney Peace focuses directly upon the legal chicanery in which Bankman-Fried was attempting to engage in at his criminal trial and that Gentile and Schneider are now attempting to use at their trial (emphasis ours):
…the court in Bankman-Fried, recently rejected the defendant’s attempt to argue that the involvement of attorneys in reviewing and approving, among other things, the formation of entities, loans to company founders, and intercompany agreements, was relevant to the defendant’s intent and gave him assurance that he was acting in good faith. See 2024 WL 477043, at *3–4. In doing so, the court held that, absent evidence that the defendant fully disclosed to the attorneys how he intended to use the entities, the source of the funds involved, or that the representations in the documents were actually false, the involvement of lawyers did not bear on any material issue at trial and, instead, would only cause juror confusion and unfair prejudice. See id. at *4. In both Bankman-Fried and Tourre, the court also precluded the defendants from referencing the involvement of attorneys in their opening statements. Id. at *2; Tourre, 950 F. Supp. 2d at 685.|
Here, the defense exhibits described above are likely to mislead the jury by falsely implying that in-house attorneys or outside counsel at Proskauer, for example—with full knowledge of all the facts—blessed or otherwise approved the disclosures at the heart of this case, including in the PPMs and, by extension, the defendants’ charged conduct. In fact, there is no evidence that the defendants provided full and complete information to counsel regarding the distribution coverage ratios or the performance guarantees described in the indictment. Indeed, the emails neither suggest they did, nor do they contain the context necessary to determine what relevant information, if any, was conveyed to the attorneys in formulating their advice, the details of their advice, or even more fundamentally whether the advice of these attorneys was followed. The mere involvement of lawyers in reviewing some of the materials relevant to this case proves nothing, but could be interpreted by the jury to mean that the lawyers approved the defendants’ conduct with full knowledge of the facts. The potential to mislead the jury is why the advice-of-counsel defense has stringent requirements, which the defendants have made no attempt to meet.
Document 315: The PDF of US Attorney Breon Peace’s letter to the Court:
Document 330: Criminal Defendant David Gentile’s Response to US Attorney Breon Peace’s letter to the court. This document is heavily redacted:
Document 331: Criminal Defendant Jeffry Schneider’s Response to US Attorney Breon Peace’s letter to the court. This document is not as heavily redacted as Gentile’s:
Categories: Financial Crimes / GPB Capital
David Gentile, Jeffry Schneider and Bankman-Fried…what a trio of callous, evil-minded narcissists! My guess is that they were not taught the difference between right and wrong as children. And now they find themselves up sh*t creek without a paddle or even a moral compass.
I utterly hated the Scientology “legal” documents signing. The only way I tolerated them, in my 27 years within the legalistically insulated “Sea Org”, when we were given various iterations of legal releases and documents to sign, was to think that the spiritual ultimate benefit of someday receiving the spiritual practices would outweigh these docs they make you sign.
I signed the Scientology legal releases and docs thinking that the spiritual benefit would outweigh the giving up of my rights to sue them someday.
I also thought that no normal citizen ever even sues their “religion” once they depart that “religion” for some other religion or to move on in life. That was a secondary reason I didn’t care about the legal docs that Scientology makes you sign, I just never contemplated ever wishing to sue them. I mean why? It was my mistaken decision to join the nutty Scientology cult, I had to eat crow for that delusional urge to think the Scientology spiritual quackery (pseudo-therapy), and then the Scientology exorcism I didn’t learn what it was until I quit Scientology.
I had to quit to learn what Scientology won’t tell you about their exorcism if you are in them, what a pickle Scientology puts their followers in.
The outside of Scientology world freely let you learn what the secret beliefs of Scientology are, but within Scientology you are not allowed to leap frog ahead and chat with them or get them to even define with simple normal language they will never tell you that OT 3, 4, 5 6 and 7 steps of “upper” Scientology are what the world knows is exorcism, or “soul freeing” if one is being charitable.
Scientology’s OT 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 upper steps are “soul freeing” invisible souls off of our human body, using the Hubbard “standard” exorcism procedures.
Our US legal and likely other countries in the western most “advanced” country’s world deal with religious or spiritual beliefs differently.
To me, layman, walk in, into Scientology, I just wanted to know what the Scientology beliefs and practices were so I could decide whether to join their seeminly organized operation of organizations and practitioners.
Scientology is such a turned around backwards stifling non clear speaking operation.
But what the Scientology practice at bottom is, is pseudo-therapy training and practice, and then exorcism/soul-freeing training and practice.
And you can’t get an “expert” on Scientology, since it is so deflecting and dodging, and that’s Scientology’s policy, because that’s L. Ron Hubbard’s mind.
Quackery is what it is. Pseudo-therapy exorcism/”soul-freeing” quackery.
Lawyers defending Scientology are protecting a quackery outfit.
Of note, the splinter Scientologists dispense with the official Scientologists’ use of lawyers, and splinter Scientologists just do their quackery, sans legalese protection.
Splinter Scientologists to me, the Trey Lotz’s and the Max Hauri’s of the splinter era of Scientology come across as mild mannered decent practitioners, compared to the nasty irreligions lawyered to the hilt official Scientology empire under David Miscavige’s interpretation of how to carry on Scientology Hubbard’s ideas into the future.
I am an investor and would love an update on the Motion for Receivership please.
Many thanks
S&C: The Motion for Receivership was approved by the Court in December 2023 but then it was stayed.
In February 2024, the Monitor Joseph Gardemal approved GPB Capital’s sale of its Healthcare IT portfolio for $190 million.
A recent document shows that distributions to investors has been rescheduled to January 2025.
According to the NYT, GPB Capital has sold $1.37 billion in assets. That money is earning significant interest each month.
If Gentile and Schneider are convicted, and I believe they will be, then some of GPB Capital’s cash must be impounded for the legal appeals of these two crooks. This is because GPB Capital’s investors are required to pay for their legal defense. This is per the contract investors signed. This outrageous contractual clause was upheld by the Delaware Chancery Court after GPB Capital refused to pay Schneider’s legal fees. GPB Capital has to keep paying.
When GPB Capital is wound down and dissolved and monies paid to investors, there will still be associated costs to do so. However, as the GPB Capital cash pile is earning interest this helps to offsets costs such as Joseph Gardemal’s monthly bills of $400,000 – $600,000 for Monitorship fees.
IMO, Gardemal is worth his fee because he, among other things, prevented David Gentile’s 2022 Memorial Day Coup attempt to wrest back control of the company and its then >$1 billion in cash. Gentile tried to do this using his three assclown buddies who are all Scientologists: https://scientologymoneyproject.com/2022/06/08/the-end-game-with-1-billion-cash-in-gpbs-accounts-deposed-ceo-david-gentile-attempts-a-coup-to-regain-control-of-the-company-the-sec-counters-and-seeks-to-place-gpb-into-receivership/
Gardemal countered Gentile by going into court and called for his Monitorship to immediately be converted into a Receivership. David Gentile’s plot failed and he was exposed, once again, as a crook.