Rohnert Park police sued by Highway 101 driver alleging officers stole his marijuana

A second Highway 101 driver has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Rohnert Park Public Safety Department alleging its officers violated his rights when they pulled him over in 2016 near the Mendocino County line and took a haul of marijuana worth more than $65,000 he was delivering to a dispensary.

Hue Freeman, 61, a longtime Mendocino County dispensary owner and cannabis farmer, said he believes the department rewarded its officers for traveling far outside city limits to seize marijuana on the highway and disregarded state laws allowing medical marijuana growers to conduct business.

In his 11-page complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Freeman accused Rohnert Park Sgt. Brendon Jacy Tatum, who resigned in June, and Officer Joseph Huffaker of pulling him over without legal justification. The suit also alleges the officers disregarded paperwork and statements from an attorney and dispensary manager proving he was abiding by state medical marijuana laws.

Freeman said he filed the lawsuit because he believes his case represents a widespread practice by Rohnert Park officers of wrongly taking marijuana or cash in highway stops far outside city limits.

A Press Democrat investigation found that the city took an aggressive stance toward seizing cash and valuables from people suspected of committing crimes through a procedure called asset forfeiture. These missions brought in about $2.4 million since 2014, far outpacing larger law enforcement agencies in Sonoma County. Rohnert Park keeps a portion of the money, and the rest is distributed to the District Attorney’s Office and other state agencies.

“The city of the Rohnert Park was using us as a cash register, exhibited by the fact they were driving 30 to 40 miles north in order to conduct their business,” Freeman said. “It was clear to me they weren’t handling our confiscations properly.”

Freeman’s lawsuit follows another federal civil rights claim filed last month by a Texas man who also said Rohnert Park and its officers violated his rights during and after a 2017 traffic stop near the Mendocino-Sonoma county line when unidentified officers seized 3 pounds of marijuana.

The plaintiff, Ezekial Flatten, a former school district police officer from San Antonio, said he acquired the cannabis lawfully with a medical marijuana recommendation from a Humboldt County farmer. He said the officers took his marijuana and abruptly left without giving him a citation or properly identifying themselves.

The lawsuits come amid a shakeup within the Rohnert Park Public Safety Department - a combined police and fire agency - that began in June with the departure of Tatum, its top drug seizure officer. Tatum and Huffaker had been placed on administrative leave in April while the city investigated allegations made public by Flatten in the media. Huffaker remains an employee, but city officials declined to say whether he had returned to active duty or to discuss the status of the internal investigation.

Changes in the department continued this summer as the city’s longtime Public Safety Director Brian Masterson announced he would retire in July at a time when the city was months into its investigation into Tatum and Huffaker.

The city also hired an outside auditor to review its drug-seizure program, evidence booking procedures and other department practices. The review is still underway and already has led to changes in evidence booking procedures.

Assistant City Manager Don Schwartz said the city would review Freeman’s complaint, although he added that the city generally does not comment on ongoing litigation.

Records show Rohnert Park kept about $1.2 million of cash seized in highway stops and other law enforcement cases between 2016 and 2017. The program has bolstered the city’s budget and drawn sharp criticism from local defense attorneys and cannabis industry players who question the lawfulness of the missions.

Freeman’s attorney, Steve Gallenson, said his client’s case is a clear example of condoned overreach. He said Rohnert Park rewarded its officers for getting “as many forfeitures as they could without regard to citizens’ constitutional rights.”

“It was lawful for him to grow marijuana. It was lawful for him to distribute it to a dispensary, and he had all the paperwork to show that,” Gallenson said. “But Tatum and Huffaker didn’t care.”

Freeman’s lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. It names as defendants the city, Masterson, Huffaker, Tatum and Sgt. David Sutter, who was not involved in the traffic stop but approved the police report.

Freeman was driving south about 1:40 p.m. on Dec. 29, 2016 in Cloverdale with the cannabis “appropriately packaged, sealed and stored in the trunk,” the court filings say. Tatum and Huffaker were in a patrol car heading north and made an abrupt U-turn, crossing a wide grassy median and driving behind Freeman.

Huffaker would later write in his report that he observed Freeman’s vehicle tires touch the fog line, and would later list on a police report that he detained Freeman because he failed to maintain the lane, a traffic infraction.

Along the roadside, the officers immediately began asking Freeman if he had marijuana in the car, Freeman said.

He showed them paperwork demonstrating “the marijuana was legally cultivated and possessed,” and included information about where it was grown and the Sherman Oaks dispensary, Higher Path, where it was destined for delivery, according to the filing. Huffaker demanded Freeman show documents “allowing marijuana transportation,” a type of document that didn’t exist and wasn’t required under state laws at the time, according to the complaint.

During the roadside stop, Freeman put police on the phone with both a Higher Path manager and his lawyer, Hannah Nelson, who both confirmed he was a lawful cultivator and a “designated provider” expected to deliver the marijuana to the dispensary.

The complaint alleges the officers “acted intentionally and with reckless disregard for the truth” and seized the marijuana, giving Freeman a citation for unlawful possession. They provided no documentation confirming the amount of cannabis taken from Freeman’s vehicle, he said.

Five days later, a Sonoma County judge signed a destruction order for the cannabis requested by Rohnert Park, according to district attorney officials, who reviewed the case documents earlier this year in response to a Press Democrat query.

It would take another four weeks before Rohnert Park police filed a report about the traffic stop and citation, with prosecutors requesting charges.

The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office declined to charge Freeman with a crime “in the interest of justice” after determining he appeared to be following medical marijuana rules, a district attorney official said.

In his civil rights complaint, Freeman said he believes the department conducted an internal investigation into his ?2016 traffic stop but that none of the officers were counseled or disciplined as a result.

The lawsuit said Masterson and the city “created an environment that incentivized officers to make as many detentions and seizures of cash and marijuana as possible without any regard for the constitutional rights of individuals.”

Freeman also claims in the complaint that the officers stopped him “based on information they had received from an unnamed source, and that the information was deliberately withheld from the Incident Report,” which was written by Huffaker and approved by Sutter.

Freeman filed a claim with the city in June 2017, requesting Rohnert Park compensate him for the financial loss, which the city promptly rejected. Freeman said the marijuana was worth more than $65,000.

“Why is a Rohnert Park cop near the Mendocino border, stopping somebody for a traffic infraction on the other side of the freeway, a car heading in the opposite direction?” Gallenson said. “To me, that’s ridiculous.”