Associate Professor James Cohen was quoted in The New York Times for an article on the trial of Thomas Gilbert Jr. who stands accused of killing his father, a wealthy New York City hedge fund founder.
He yelled “Objection!” repeatedly as his mother took the witness stand to describe his slow mental unraveling in the years before prosecutors say he killed his father.
Prosecutors have said they will prove Mr. Gilbert showed up unannounced at his parents’ Turtle Bay apartment in January 2015 with a pistol and shot his father in the head after learning his parents were drastically cutting his $1,000-a-week allowance. The murder rattled the New York society milieu his family frequented.
Mr. Gilbert’s lawyer, Arnold Levine, argues his client was too impaired by mental illness to understand his actions, and the trial unfolding in State Supreme Court in Manhattan has centered on Mr. Gilbert’s sanity.
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James Cohen, an associate professor at law with Fordham University, said it is rare for a defendant to remain delusional over an extended period of time, once given medication.“You have to be really ill with a mental illness that is very difficult for medication to shake,” he said.