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A man alleged to be the ultimate source of nearly £40,000 in impermissible donations to Robert Jenrick’s 2024 Conservative leadership campaign pled guilty to wire fraud in the United States.
Gary Klopfenstein, a Chicago-based investment professional, admitted the offence in July 2024 in connection with a major investment scheme prosecuted in California, in which investors were misled and funds misappropriated, according to the US Department of Justice.
In July and August 2024, prior to his defection to Reform UK, Jenrick received £100,000 in staged donations from The Spott Fitness, a UK-based company now known as The Manna Journey Ltd. The most recent accounts show the company had no employees and was heavily loss-making. The filings also show it owes nearly £2 million to, and is ultimately controlled by, an opaque British Virgin Islands-based entity.
While the £100,000 donation was previously thought to originate from one Phillip Ullman – a self-described social business entrepreneur and political donor – Ullman reportedly informed the Electoral Commission in 2025 that £37,500 of the donation originated from Klopfenstein via his US company Innovyz. Donations from foreign companies and individuals are impermissible under UK electoral law.
Ullman and Klopfenstein are understood to be embroiled in a legal dispute.
Klopfenstein is said to have transferred the funds from Innovyz to Spott Fitness on July 8 and July 24, 2024. Between the transfers, on July 19, Klopfenstein pleaded guilty.
Klopfenstein served as Chief Wealth Officer at Zolla Financial, an investment firm linked to a wider fraud operation centred on its founder, Matthew Piercey. According to US prosecutors, the scheme involved soliciting funds from investors on the promise of high returns, before diverting money for unauthorised purposes and using new investments to pay earlier backers.
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The operation, which ran between 2019 and 2020, resulted in millions of dollars in losses for investors. Piercey has been identified by federal authorities as the central figure in the scheme, which has been described in court proceedings as a Ponzi-style fraud.
Court filings show that Klopfenstein admitted to conspiring in the scheme and has since cooperated with prosecutors in the case against Piercey. His sentencing, originally scheduled for April 2026, has been delayed until August 2026 following a request to move it until after Piercey’s own sentencing.
Piercey was arrested in 2020 after attempting to evade FBI agents by fleeing across a California lake using an underwater submersible device, according to federal authorities. He pleaded guilty in 2025 to wire fraud, concealment money laundering, and witness tampering in connection with the $35 million investment fraud scheme.
Police are already assessing evidence in relation to the donation following a referral from the Electoral Commission. The Conservative party has said that it has referred Jenrick to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
The revelations echo previous Byline Times reports detailing Jenrick’s controversial donors – including Ukrainian government sanctioned oligarch Len Blavatnik, Israeli billionaire named in the Pandora papers Idan Offer, and companies that appear to be inactive in the UK.
Jenrick was forced to resign as Housing Secretary in 2020 amid a donations scandal, when it emerged that he had overturned a planning inspector’s decision to award planning permission for a £1 billion property scheme by media tycoon Richard Desmond – just two weeks before he donated £12,000 to the Conservative Party.
Jenrick’s team has denied any wrongdoing in relation to the donation from Spott Fitness, saying he complied with electoral law, cooperated with the Electoral Commission, and was unaware of any link to Klopfenstein.
Anna Turley MP, Labour Party Chair, commenting on news that police are to assess a donation to Robert Jenrick’s Tory leadership campaign, said: “Robert Jenrick is no stranger to donation scandals. As a Tory minister, he abused his government office by admitting he helped a donor swerve a staggering £45 million in tax.
“This latest troubling development once again calls into question whether Jenrick has any respect for the integrity of our politics.
“Reform have tried to dodge questions on the Richard Tice tax scandal. Their new recruit Jenrick must commit to immediately providing the police with the unvarnished truth on this matter.”
Gary Klopfenstein and Robert Jenrick were both contacted for comment.
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