The question everyone is asking: How did convicted fraudster David Gentile receive a commutation from President Trump after only serving twelve days of his seven year prison sentence?

We explore possible answers.

David Gentile’s GPB Capital Holdings began in 2012 with Russian mob money which was invested by Rina and Diana Chernaya, the daughters of Russian mobster Michael Chernaya, the reputed head of the Ismailovskaya crime family located in a district of Moscow. Michael Chernaya shared an apartment in Moscow in the 1980’s with Vladimir Putin’s cousin. Michael Cherenya is also known as Mikael Chernaya, Michael Cherney, Michael Chernoi, and other variations of his name. 

The Daily Mail has alleged has alleged that Jeffrey Epstein lead a KGB-funded honeypot ring designed to gain kompromat on the wealthy and powerful in the West. There is a GPB Capital tie to Jeffrey Epstein through Dor Biopharma, a company in which David Gentile and his father’s business partner Bernard Pismeny invested. We documented the Dor Biopharma ties to GPB Capital in 2020. 

Here are the David Gentile connections we have mapped:

Notes from our past research:

2012: David Gentile began doing business with Rina and Diana Chernaya, the daughters of Russian mobster Michael Chernaya. Their companies included GPB Capital, RDRD Holdings, and Seaniemac, an online gaming company. Michael Chernaya’s US business representative is NYC lawyer Robert Kessler who had an early ownership position in GPB Capital’s Automotive Portfolio via CKGF, which stood for Chernaya, Kessler, Gentile, Francese.

In the Matter of Gliklad v Chernoi (2015 NY Slip Op 05572 Decided on June 25, 2015) Rina and Diana Chernaya argued that their father had given them $100 million in a company called ERIP. They lost the case. The point here is that the Chernaya sisters have access to their billionaire father’s enormous sums of cash and his network of people globally. GPB Capital Holdings, in which they had invested, served as a cash placement vehicle for the Chernaya money.

David Gentile did not want to go to prison. No one does. Every former convict on YouTube says that everyone becomes a rat when they are looking at prison time. One possibility for Gentile’s commutation was what he knows about the Cheraya sisters and their father. Because Michael Chernaya knows Putin, and the FSB (formerly the KGB) allegedly has kompromat on Trump, this suggests a possible avenue for a commutation. Michael Chernaya lives in exile in Israel due to an Interpol Red Sheet on him for financial crimes. President Trump has strong ties to Israel.

We reported on a leaked FBI document:

Could this New York-based private equity firm be GPB Capital Holdings whose sole owner is the Scientologist David Gentile? The timing fits. In 2015 Gentile’s fellow Scientologist and St. Petersburg real estate developer Larry Feldman announced plans to build Riverwalk on land that was originally slated to be Trump Tower Tampa.

A July 2018 article in Business Observer informed readers that GPB Capital Holdings had committed to fund the launch of the 53 story condo project in Tampa (emphasis ours): 

Feldman says GPB Capital could provide all of the necessary equity to launch the project, which would amount to between $70 million and $105 million…

Did the Russians (Chernaya) move $100 million into GPB Capital and have David Gentile earmark that money for the Riverwalk project? Real estate development has always been a perfect target for money laundering as it allows for padding, skimming, expensive delays, and other ways to place, layer, and integrate cash. Using a private equity vehicle is even better as a private equity firm provides opacity.

The reason we mention Riverwalk is that the project collapsed and Larry Feldman walked away from it. Why? Was the money all gone? Feldman then deindexed all of his firm’s page on Riverwalk from Google and the internet. David Gentile may have had information he could offer the Feds on this deal that went south.

David Gentile hired Jeffrey Epstein’s attorney Matthew Menchel, the former US Attorney in Miami who gave Epstein a sweetheart deal on serious sex trafficking charges in 2008: 

Jeffrey Epstein had multiple appointments, phone calls and dinners with Matthew Menchel — the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office chief criminal prosecutor who spearheaded Epstein’s sweetheart deal in 2007, newly released documents show.

A tranche of over 8,500 pages of records from Epstein’s estate — released by the House Oversight Committee Friday — show that Epstein’s calendars and emails reflect that Menchel, who left the DOJ in 2007, had multiple meetings or dinners with Epstein in 2011, 2013 and 2017…

Epstein’s 2008 deal allowed the New York financier to escape federal sex trafficking charges that could have put him in prison for life. It also gave immunity to others involved in his crimes, many of whom have never been identified.

A 2018 investigation by the Miami Herald, called ‘Perversion of Justice,’ detailed how federal prosecutors in South Florida minimized Epstein’s abuse of almost 100 underage girls and worked closely with Epstein’s high-powered attorneys to keep the scope of his crimes secret. Following publication of the series, federal prosecutors in New York re-examined the case, and Epstein was arrested again in 2019 on more serious sex trafficking charges. However, he died nearly a month later in federal custody, in what was ruled a suicide by hanging.

Matthew Menchel of Kobre & Kim is the former Miami U.S. Attorney’s office chief criminal prosecutor. Menchel has powerful connections.

Alexander Acosta, who oversaw the office where Menchel worked, was later appointed as Secretary of Labor by President Donald Trump in 2017. Matthew Menchel was a top deputy to Alexander Acosta—a future Trump Cabinet member—when they oversaw the controversial 2007 plea deal for Jeffrey Epstein. It is fair to say that Menchel has contacts into the Trump administration. 

Matthew Menchel is a partner at Kobre & Kim. As a partner since 2007, Menchel has specialized in high-profile litigation and government enforcement defense. Despite Menchel’s many successes, he lost in the David Gentile case. Despite a seven-week trial, the jury convicted Gentile and Schneider in a few hours of deliberation. 

1995: Jeffrey Epstein and Amanda J. “Mandy” Ellison incorporate Ghislaine Corporation in Florida. Mandy Ellison is the wife of Dr. Ralph Ellison of Dor Biopharma. GPB’s VP Biotech Evan Myrianthopoulos came from Dor Biotech. As noted, David Gentile and his father’s business partner Bernard Pismeny were investors in the company.

Ralph and Mandy Ellison flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane and were guests on his private island. Mandy Ellison was on a first name basis with Jeffrey Epstein and her name appears many times in the Epstein Files. The Ellison’s also appear on page 17 of Epstein’s Black Book. One example of an email from the Epstein files:

The DOJ redacted this page on Mandy Ellison from the Epstein Files almost immediately. We retrieved it and it is a passenger manifest showing that Mandy Ellison and her husband Dr. Ralph Ellison were frequent flyers on Epstein’s Lolita Express:

Given David Gentile’s ties to Dor Biopharma and Mandy Ellison — who was on a first name basis with Jeffrey Epstein — what favors could she call in with the Trump Administration?

2004: Jeffry Schneider takes a position as senior vice president with Paradigm Global Advisors, the fund of hedge funds owned by Hunter Biden and his Uncle James. Joe Biden is then the senior US Senator from Delaware. See our article on the Hunter Biden-Jeffry Schneider connection. Schneider’s connections to the Biden family likely explain why David Gentile received a Trump commutation and Schneider will remain in prison for all six years of his sentence. 

2025: The behind the scenes details on how David Gentile walked away from a seven-year prison sentence in which he defrauded 15,000 investors of $1.7 billion raise many questions about the relationship of the Church of Scientology to the Trump White House.

Scientology crime boss David Miscavige would want David Gentile out of prison because Gentile knows too much about the inner workings of what we have long called the Scientology Money Club. These are the wealthy Scientologists who keep money flowing into Miscavige’s slush fund known as the IAS. This international group of monied Scientologists have crucial connections — called “comm lines” in Scientology — that extend outside of Scientology and reach all the way into the White House. David Gentile becomes a risk if he sits in prison for seven years and decides to talk. Jeffry Schneider, by contrast, is an unimportant wog who knows nothing about the Scientology Money Club. 

The key Scientologists we are looking into include John Coale and his wife Greta Van Susteren. Coale served as Trump’s main lawyer when the President sued Meta for banning his account on Facebook. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg settled with Trump for a $25 million donation to the Trump Presidential Library. In late 2025, President Trump appointed John Coale to be the US Special Envoy to Ukraine and Belarus. This places Coale at the center of US foreign policy and geopolitics.

John Coale and Greta Van Susteren have long safe-pointed Scientology in Christian Evangelical circles due to their long friendship with Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse. Franklin Graham has long called John and Greta his dear friends, this despite L. Ron Hubbard having declared in his secret teachings that Jesus Christ was a pedophile and that Christianity is an alien R6 implant. We think Franklin Graham long ago chose to remain willfully ignorant on this matter for his own reasons. 

John Coale is well-positioned in the Trump Administration to have sought a commutation for David Gentile. Greta Van Susteren is also well placed due to her connections to Franklin Graham and Trump’s Evangelical voter base. Again, until specifics of Gentile’s thoroughly  corrupt commutation are obtained, what went on behind the scenes remains uncertain.

Scientology billionaire Trish Duggan is a major Trump supporter and has donated millions of dollars to Trump in his 2016 and 2024 campaigns. Trump appointed her to the Board of the Kennedy Center after he won the 2024 election. Trish Duggan has an in at the White House. 

A package on Russian oligarchs Michael Chernaya and Oleg Deripaska: