The US National Futures Association (NFA) has taken an emergency enforcement action against Vespula Capital Management LLC, an NFA Member commodity pool operator located in Wilton, Connecticut.

NFA’s action also names Joel Kirkham Johnson, a principal and the sole associated person of Vespula and an NFA Associate located in Orem, Utah.

The Member and Associate Responsibility Action (MRA/ARA) does not suspend, expel or otherwise affect Vespula and Johnson’s NFA membership and associate membership statuses. However, the MRA/ARA’s requirements and undertakings are necessary to protect participants in VCM Strategic Opportunity Fund LP (VCM Strategic Fund), a commodity pool that Vespula operates, as well as the investing public, NFA Members and other financial institutions because NFA has reason to believe that approximately $2 million in assets belonging to VCM Strategic Fund have been dissipated via transfers to entities owned and/or controlled by Vespula, Johnson and/or Vespula’s chief executive officer, Jeffery Lee Tomasulo, to the detriment of the VCM Strategic Fund participants.

The MRA/ARA is effective immediately and prohibits Vespula, Johnson and any other person acting on their behalf from:

• Soliciting or accepting any funds for investment in VCM Strategic Fund or any other commodity pools or other investment vehicles over which Vespula, Johnson or any other person acting on their behalf exercises control until Vespula has submitted a disclosure document for VCM Strategic Fund that NFA has reviewed and accepted, which discusses the circumstances of this MRA/ARA;
• Disbursing or transferring any funds from any bank, trading or other types of accounts in the name of Vespula, VCM Strategic Fund, or from the account of any other commodity pool or other investment vehicle that Vespula or Johnson operates or over which they exercise control, without prior approval from NFA; and
• Placing any trades, except to liquidate existing positions, in any brokerage account(s) that is in the name of Vespula, VCM Strategic Fund, or any other pool or other investment vehicle over which Vespula, Johnson or any other person acting on their behalf exercises control.

The restrictions and undertakings mentioned above will remain in effect until Vespula and/or Johnson demonstrate to NFA’s satisfaction that they have complied with them and obtained a full accounting of VCM Strategic Fund’s books and records, including the use of proceeds from the VCM Strategic Fund and the transfers of the Fund’s assets to/from entities owned and/or controlled by Vespula, Johnson and/or Tomasulo, or over which any person acting on their behalf exercises control.

Vespula or Johnson may request a hearing before NFA’s Hearing Committee.

ln late February 2026, Vespula submitted a June 2025 disclosure document (DD) to NFA. Ln reviewing the DD and other information from the firm, NFA noticed the Fund had accepted investments from pool participants and commenced operations in 2025, even though Vespula did not have an NFA-accepted DD for the VCM Strategic Fund before the firm solicited pool participants to invest their assets in the Fund.

The unaccepted June 2025 DD discussed “illiquid investments” but made no specific mention of real estate investments. NFA did not accept the June 2025 DD due to numerous deficiencies (which NFA informed Vespula of) and, to date, has not accepted any other DD for the Fund.

On March 25,2026, Vespula filed the Fund’s December 31,2025 audited pool financial statement (PFS). The PFS reflected that pool participants’ capital in the Fund totaled more than $5.8 million, which included an investment of more than $1.3 million in a “private investment company” identified as Tomahawk.

The PFS included an “Emphasis of Matter” notation, which stated the Tomahawk investment represented nearly 24% of the Fund’s capital as of December 31, 2025, and that the investment’s fair value had been determined based on an unaudited net asset value (NAV). The PFS also described the Tomahawk investment under the “Related Party Transactions” heading as “purchase and sales transactions with an affiliated private investment company.” Even though the December 31, 2025 PFS identified Tomahawk as the “private investment company” involved in the related-party transaction, the PFS did not disclose how Tomahawk’s ownership was related to Vespula, Johnson and Tomasulo.

The PFS’s notation and investment description caused NFA to commence an examination of Vespula in late April 2026. The exam revealed that Tomahawk was used as a vehicle to dissipate approximately $2 million in assets belonging to the VCM Strategic Fund, primarily for Tomasulo’s personal benefit and contrary to the Fund participants’ best interests.