Unreported Former Cop Tied to Controversial Policing Suit Is a Beneficial Owner of Pro-Trump DC Private Club

Last spring, when private members’ club The Executive Branch soft-launched in Washington, DC, early hype centered almost entirely on its star-studded roster of backers and founding members. Previous reporting confirms former President Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is one of the club’s multiple co-owners. Charter founding members are reported to include ex-Trump administration AI advisor David Sacks, Sacks’ All-In podcast co-host Chamath Palihapitiya, and high-profile crypto leaders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.

“Our goal was to build something new, hipper, and aligned with the Trump movement,” Sacks said at the time of the launch. Access to the inner circle of Trumpworld does not come cheap: even though the club’s headquarters is a basement space tucked behind a commercial shopping complex, initiation fees are reported to reach as high as $500,000.

Early press coverage of this pro-MAGA gathering spot named Donald Trump Jr. and his business associates Omeed Malik, Chris Buskirk, and brothers Zach and Alex Witkoff as the club’s co-owners. A later Mother Jones investigation uncovered additional involvement from Glenn Gilmore, a San Francisco Bay Area real estate developer and frequent business partner of Sacks. Official documents list Gilmore under a range of titles, including co-owner, managing member, director, and president.

But according to corporate filings reviewed by WIRED, there is another key figure whose involvement has never been previously reported, and whose ties to the club’s high-profile founders remain unpublicized: Sean LoJacono, a former officer with Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) who gained local notoriety for his role in a controversial stop-and-frisk that spawned a civil lawsuit.

Per the original legal complaint, LoJacono stopped a man named M.B. Cottingham in 2017 on suspicion of violating open container alcohol laws, then conducted a full body search. A recording of the encounter went viral on YouTube, sparking fierce national debate over aggressive policing tactics. “He stuck his finger in my crack,” Cottingham says in the video. “Stop fingering me, though, bro.” The following year, the ACLU of DC sued LoJacono on Cottingham’s behalf, alleging the officer had “jammed his fingers between Mr. Cottingham’s buttocks and grabbed his genitals.” Cottingham settled the suit in 2018, receiving an undisclosed payout from the District of Columbia (which admitted no wrongdoing as part of the agreement).

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After an internal affairs probe, MPD moved to terminate LoJacono’s employment. Investigators ruled the Cottingham search did not warrant firing, but a second improper search LoJacono conducted that same day did. By early 2019, LoJacono appealed his dismissal, arguing in widely publicized hearings that he had conducted both searches in line with training he received from veteran field officers. His termination was initially upheld, but the police union’s collective bargaining agreement allowed LoJacono to take a further appeal to an independent third-party arbitrator, who ruled in his favor in November 2023.

Rather than returning to the police force, LoJacono took an entirely different career path. A LinkedIn profile matching LoJacono’s name, photo, and work history lists his current role as “Director of Security and Facilities Management” at an unnamed private club in Washington, DC, a position he has held since June 2025. Official incorporation paperwork for The Executive Branch Limited Liability Company, filed with DC’s corporate division in March 2025 (shortly before the club’s launch), lists LoJacono as a “beneficial owner” of the business. The address on the filing matches the club’s confirmed location. Notably, Donald Trump Jr. and other publicly named owners do not appear on the document; Gilmore is listed as the company’s “organizer.”

The filing confirms LoJacono holds beneficial ownership status for the legal entity tied to The Executive Branch, but what exactly does that designation mean?

“You have to have some level of engagement or control over the company to be listed this way,” Gary Kalman, executive director of anti-corruption non-profit Transparency International U.S., told WIRED. Kalman added that the title does not automatically mean majority control, but it indicates at minimum a substantial minority stake in the business.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network defines “beneficial ownership information” as “identifying information about the individuals who directly or indirectly own or control a company.” DC’s Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection confirmed to WIRED that under local law, a beneficial owner is anyone who owns or controls 10 percent or more of a company, or holds a senior management role overseeing day-to-day operations.

In a second March 2025 filing for an entity called Executive Branch Security Company, LoJacono is again listed as a beneficial owner. That entity’s status was marked “canceled” in January 2026, a common occurrence for business owners who file and later scrap initial trade name paperwork while finalizing LLC registration.

LoJacono’s and Gilmore’s names appear repeatedly across official documents for the club’s various affiliated entities, though not always on the same forms. A separate corporate filing for an entity called Executive Branch LLC, initially registered in Wyoming, names Gilmore as “president” but makes no mention of LoJacono. In a fourth filing submitted to DC’s government in January 2026 for an entity called Executive Branch Security Company LLC, Gilmore is listed as a beneficial owner and LoJacono is not named at all.

The Executive Branch did not respond to requests for comment. LoJacono, Gilmore, Donald Trump Jr., and David Sacks all also declined to respond to multiple requests for comment.

It remains unclear how LoJacono first connected to the upper ranks of Trumpworld. His family has deep roots in U.S. public service spanning three generations: his father was an MPD commander, while his grandfather was an FBI chemist and forensic scientist who worked on pivotal investigations, including the 1964 “Mississippi Burning” case into the murders of three civil rights activists.

Hiring by pro-MAGA power players is not unprecedented for people accused of violating others’ civil rights. High-profile Silicon Valley Trump boosters Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz hired Daniel Penny, the former Marine best known for fatally choking a mentally ill man on a New York City subway. Penny joined an investment team at Andreessen Horowitz in 2025, one year after he was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide, despite having no prior professional investment experience.

Matt Giles contributed reporting to this article.