Metro

Hedge fund founder ‘shot dead’ by son

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Thomas Gilbert Jr. Patrick McMullan
Thomas Gilbert Sr.'s body is taken by medical examiners.
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Police at the scene of the shooting at the Beekman Place apartments on Sunday.
Police at the scene of the shooting at the Beekman Place apartments on Sunday. Angel Chevrestt
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Angel Chevrestt
Angel Chevrestt
Beekman Place is located near the United Nations in downtown Manhattan.
Beekman Place is located near the United Nations in Manhattan. Angel Chevrestt
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The elderly founder of a Manhattan hedge fund was fatally shot in the head by his 30-year-old son inside the family’s swank East Side apartment on Sunday, authorities said.

Thomas Gilbert Sr., 70, the Harvard-educated founder and chief investment officer of Wainscott Capital Partners, was gunned down by son Thomas Gilbert Jr., who was arrested about seven hours later at his Chelsea apartment, according to police.

The two had been arguing in the dad’s bedroom at about 3:30 p.m., the sources said. After the shots were fired, the victim’s wife called 911, according to sources.

The son dropped his .40-caliber Glock pistol and fled the eighth-floor apartment at 20 Beekman Place, the sources said.

Gilbert Jr. was arrested around 11 p.m. and taken to the 17th Precinct station house.

Christopher Kelly, a doctor who lives directly below the Gilberts’ East Side apartment, said he heard the gunshot but didn’t know what it was.

Thomas Gilbert Sr.

“I heard a loud sound right above me,” he said. “In New York, you hear loud noises. I thought somebody dropped something.”

Kelly said he learned from the doorman that the younger Gilbert had entered the building right after his dad and then came back out minutes later and didn’t respond to the doorman’s greeting.

“It’s horrible,” the doctor said.

Hector Torres, 33, a neighbor who works in finance, had only kind words for the elder Gilbert.

“He was a pillar on Wall Street — somebody everyone looked up to,” Torres said. “Very nice gentleman . . . They seem like a normal family. Every time I saw him in the elevator, he would say, ‘Hi.’ He would ask how I was.”

Gilbert Sr. was a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School who racked up more than 40 years on Wall Street.

In 2011, he founded Wainscott, a small hedge fund that focuses primarily on biotech and health-care investing.

As of August 2013, Wainscott managed $5 million, according to a newsletter called Hedge Fund Alert.

Last November, the money manager explained that his firm takes a cautious approach to investing.

“We’re not cowboys,” Gilbert Sr. told the website FINalternatives.com. “We’re not trying to beat all of the biotech funds.”

Gilbert Sr. had also run deal departments for major Wall Street firms, including at Loeb Partners Corp.

Additional reporting by Sophia Rosenbaum, Chris Perez and Kevin Dugan