The commutation of Scientologist David Gentile’s federal prison sentence by Donald Trump has triggered a predictable and troubling sequel: Gentile’s convicted co-conspirator, Jeffry Schneider, is now asking the court to reduce his own sentence by invoking Gentile’s executive clemency as a legal and equitable justification. Scroll down to read Scheider’s filing. 

Schneider’s motion, styled as a request for reconsideration or reduction of sentence to time served, is built on a single premise: that Gentile’s commutation created an “extraordinary and compelling” sentencing disparity that now entitles Schneider to relief. The argument is remarkable not only for its audacity, but for how directly it attempts to convert an act of presidential grace for one defendant into a judicial obligation for another.

The Underlying Convictions Remain Intact

Gentile and Schneider were convicted as co-defendants in the same federal fraud scheme. Gentile was convicted on five felony counts; Schneider was convicted on four felony counts, all arising from the same conduct and the same alleged scheme.

Those convictions have not been overturned, vacated, or questioned by any court. Gentile’s commutation did not erase his guilt, nullify the jury’s verdict, or disturb the factual findings made at trial. His five felony convictions still stand, just as Schneider’s four felony convictions still stand.

At sentencing, the court imposed seven years on Gentile and approximately six years on Schneider. The sentencing court explicitly weighed relative culpability at that time and imposed what it viewed as proportionate punishment under the federal sentencing framework.

That balance was later shattered not by judicial reconsideration or appellate reversal, but by executive intervention.

The Trump Commutation and the Access Gap

On December 20, 2020, President Trump commuted Gentile’s sentence. Gentile ultimately served only twelve days of his seven year sentence before Trump let him out of prison. The White House’s explanation for the commutation did not dispute the jury’s verdict or the trial evidence; instead, it emphasized claims related to investor disclosures and funding practices that went directly to the government’s fraud theory at trial. This was an outright lie by Donald Trump and ignored the evidence at trial.  

What the explanation did not address is the obvious asymmetry between the two defendants. Gentile, a Scientologist, had access to networks and intermediaries in Trump World that Schneider did not. Schneider was not a Scientologist, and he did not enjoy the same political or social proximity to a White House that proved unusually receptive to such appeals.

This is not a legal distinction. It is a practical one.

If Schneider were drafting a strategy memo in hindsight, his most effective move would not have been a sentencing argument or an appellate brief. It would have been to become both a Trump supporter and a Scientologist sometime around 2016. Schneider could have also 10X’d this by throwing a million dollars of of his ill-gotten gains into Cardone Capital as Scientologist Grant Cardone has access to Trump:

President Trump and Scientologist faux billionaire and influencer Grant Cardone

Another possible issue, and one we have documented, is that Jeffry Schneider had direct ties to Hunter Biden and President Biden’s brother James Biden when he worked at their firm Paradigm Global Advisors. At the firm, Hunter and James Biden had disturbing ties to R. Allen Stanford as well as the Ponta Negra fraud, the agent of contact for whom was Jeffry Schneider.

In 2009, questions about investment oversight and industry networks surfaced in the wake of regulatory action against Ponta Negra Fund I, LLC. That firm’s SEC case overlapped with connections to Paradigm Global Advisors — then owned by Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden — and a shared marketing agent, Jeffry Schneider, who later co-founded GPB Capital with Scientologist David Gentile. Although no public record shows direct financial ties between Hunter Biden and Schneider after 2010, the overlap of personnel and business relationships has raised questions about due diligence, shared networks, and recurring patterns of association among principals in hedge funds and alternative investment firms.
Schneider’s past connections to the Biden’s would place him in Trump’s bad books.

Scientologist Grant Cardone’s Double Standard

Grant Cardone appeared on Piers Morgan’s show in 2024 to complain about then President Biden issuing a sweeping pardon for his son Hunter Biden and his brother James. These controversial pardons were granted in the waning hours of Biden’s presidency. Despite his protestations of Biden’ pardons, Scientologist Cardone has remained silent on Trump’s commutation of Scientologist David Gentile. This is to be expected as it how hypocrisy and corruption work. 

Schneider’s Argument

Schneider now argues that leaving his sentence intact while Gentile walks free produces precisely the kind of unwarranted disparity that sentencing law seeks to avoid. He contends that Gentile’s commutation constitutes a post-sentencing development so extraordinary that the court should reduce Schneider’s sentence to time served in order to “restore balance.”

The filing goes further, asserting that Gentile was previously viewed by the court as more culpable than Schneider; therefore, Gentile’s early release magnifies the inequity of Schneider remaining incarcerated for the full term originally imposed.

What Schneider does not argue is that his convictions were wrongful, unsupported by evidence, or legally infirm. He cannot. His four felony convictions remain final, enforceable judgments.

The Structural Problem

The motion exposes a deeper problem with executive clemency when applied selectively to co-defendants in the same criminal enterprise. Federal sentencing is designed to ensure proportionality at the time of judgment. Executive clemency, by contrast, operates outside that structure and is not constrained by parity, evidence rules, or judicial fact-finding.

Courts have repeatedly warned against retroactively equalizing sentences based on executive actions, precisely because clemency is inherently discretionary and individualized. A commutation does not convert guilt into innocence, nor does it obligate courts to rewrite sentences for others who remain lawfully convicted.

Nonetheless, Schneider asks the court to do exactly that.

Why This Matters

If accepted, Schneider’s argument would create a perverse incentive structure: whenever one defendant with political access or powerful advocates secures clemency, co-defendants could claim derivative entitlement to relief, effectively laundering executive favoritism into judicial precedent.

One fact cuts through the maneuvering: both men remain convicted felons. Gentile’s five felony convictions still stand. Schneider’s four felony convictions still stand. The only difference is that Gentile possessed relationships that translated into presidential favors, while Schneider did not.

Whether the court agrees remains to be seen. But the outrage here is not subtle and nine US Senators wrote a letter to President Trump complaining about his commutation of David Gentile’s prison sentence. One defendant has already escaped most of his punishment. The other is now asking the judiciary to compensate for his lack of political and religious connectivity by rewriting a lawful sentence.

That is not justice. It is proximity.

Schneider’s Court Filing for Reconsideration. The flaw in the argument made in the filing is that Trump’s justification for Gentile’s commutation is a legally non-binding opinion, demonstrably false, and politically motivated. The court is not obligated to vacate its sentencing.

Judge Rachel Kovner spoke at Harvard Law School on SCOTUS and textualism: