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Two aged Rohnert Park law enforcement officers had been sentenced Wednesday in a federal marijuana extortion case that prosecutors whisper interesting years of motorway shakedowns focusing on cannabis motorists alongside Motorway 101, alongside with impersonating federal agents and falsifying police reports.

This week’s sentencing culminates a yearslong strive to elevate the officers to justice. Nonetheless for Izaak Schwaiger — a Sonoma County attorney who represented seven folks in civil litigation tied to the Rohnert Park officers’ stops — the shatter end result became once “silly.” 

“I’m of two minds on the shatter end result,” Schwaiger instructed SFGATE. “One is that it’s excellent to leer that the tide is origin to flip and that pass cops who ruin the legislation are origin to be held guilty, and that’s something that we can all beget a excellent time.”

Restful, Schwaiger stated the punishment didn’t mirror the scale of the alleged behavior, noting that if the cops had been “long-established folks” robbing motorway motorists, they would perchance beget gotten a lot extra than 20 or 30 months. “This has been going on for years,” Schwaiger added. “That is now now not a one-time thing. These guys did this to an total bunch of oldsters over a variety of years. They stole thousands and thousands of greenbacks from folks after which there became once a enormous quilt-up.”

A federal jury convicted Huffaker in July 2025 of extortion below color of reliable correct, falsifying data in a federal investigation, impersonating a federal officer and conspiracy, per the U.S. attorney’s location of job. Tatum pleaded guilty in 2021 to conspiracy to commit extortion below color of reliable correct, falsifying data in a federal investigation and tax evasion, and he later testified at some level of Huffaker’s trial.

In step with federal prosecutors, the 2 males labored for the metropolis’s police division between 2012 and 2019 and previously participated in a drug interdiction crew working alongside Motorway 101 between Cloverdale and Rohnert Park. The Sonoma County metropolis is located alongside a serious cannabis transport route between rising areas in Northern California’s Humboldt and Mendocino counties and San Francisco. Prosecutors stated Huffaker and Tatum persisted stopping suspected cannabis transporters even after the division’s interdiction crew formally ended, pulling motorists over whereas off responsibility and falsely figuring out themselves as agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sooner than seizing marijuana they later bought for earnings.

Schwaiger stated the federal prosecutors centered on a slender sever of the behavior that victims and protection attorneys beget prolonged accused the officers of accomplishing. 

“The crimes for which they had been sentenced had been fractional [compared] to their complicity,” Schwaiger instructed SFGATE. “That is an total bunch of victims over decades, they customarily’re being marginally held to account for what they did to a single particular person … It’s now now not ample.” 

The federal case adopted years of allegations from cannabis growers, motorists and protection attorneys who accused Rohnert Park officers of conducting pretextual Motorway 101 visitors stops to steal marijuana and cash.

“In the criminal protection community in Sonoma County, it became once now now not even a secret,” Schwaiger stated.

He stated the accusations had prolonged circulated within Sonoma County’s criminal protection community sooner than KQED publicly documented a pair of motorists’ accounts in 2018. A fashion of motorists, Mendocino cannabis cultivator Huedell Freeman, instructed the outlet that officers seized 47 pounds of cannabis he became once legally transporting in 2016.

“At that moment I knew I’d been had,” Freeman instructed the outlet. “I knew that this became once now now not a protracted-established visitors cease.”

One other lawsuit, filed by Texas resident Ezekial Flatten, alleged Huffaker and every other officer stopped him in Mendocino County in December 2017 whereas he became once transporting roughly three pounds of cannabis supposed for a making an strive out facility. The swimsuit alleged the officers wore “green protection force-fashion uniforms and not using a badges, insignia, or nametags,” identified themselves as ATF agents and left alongside with his cannabis within minutes with out issuing a citation. 

KQED previously reported that the Rohnert Park Division of Public Security bought extra than $1 million in seized cash between 2015 and 2016 by asset forfeiture exercise. Tatum, who, per the federal indictment, supervised the division’s asset forfeiture operations in 2016, became once publicly identified by metropolis officers for his drug interdiction work in 2015.

Federal prosecutors later alleged that Tatum personally netted extra than $400,000 in illicit proceeds by marijuana gross sales and tax evasion schemes. Prosecutors stated he old structured financial institution deposits and cashier’s tests to masks profits, alongside with purchases tied to a nearly $47,000 fishing boat.

In 2020, Rohnert Park metropolis leaders accepted settlements with a pair of males who sued the metropolis over marijuana and cash seizures tied to the interdiction stops. Freeman bought $287,500, whereas seven a bunch of motorists split a $1.175 million settlement. The metropolis furthermore one at a time settled with Flatten for $415,000.

In step with a huge jury indictment, the FBI began investigating after receiving a 2018 complaint from any individual who stated they had been shaken down by police on Motorway 101. Prosecutors stated Huffaker and Tatum then falsified a police fable a pair of Dec. 18 visitors cease and marijuana seizure, and Tatum forwarded the falsified fable and a assertion to the FBI agent investigating the cease, per every other complaint. 

Tatum later admitted in his plea settlement to stealing marijuana from the Rohnert Park police situation, extorting marijuana from motorists on Motorway 101, promoting marijuana for inner most earnings, and evading taxes in 2015 and 2016, the U.S. attorney’s location of job stated.

Tatum left the Rohnert Park Division of Public Security in 2018 after KQED reported on the allegations in opposition to him. Huffaker later left the division in early 2019 below a settlement settlement with the metropolis. Former Rohnert Park Police Chief Brian Masterson furthermore retired in 2018.

To boot to to jail time, Huffaker and Tatum had been sentenced to three years of supervised open. Tatum became once ordered to pay $301,145.70 in restitution, whereas Huffaker became once ordered to pay $20,000. Huffaker is scheduled to launch serving his sentence on Sept. 15. Tatum is scheduled to fable Jan. 11, 2027.

Schwaiger stated he hopes the convictions ship a message to officers tempted to abuse their authority. “I am hoping it says that any individual is staring at,” he stated. “Even supposing I don’t bid they’re staring at ample.”

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Olivia Hebert is a info reporter at SFGATE, the attach she covers breaking info and a various array of issues. Sooner than becoming a member of SFGATE, she wrote daily life info for the Independent, frequently exploring the intersection of health, know-how, popular culture, chase and fashion. She’s furthermore written leisure info for Collider, Distractify and StyleCaster. You would perchance well maybe reach her at olivia.hebert@sfgate.com.