New lawsuit accuses Rohnert Park police of stealing marijuana, cash from five more drivers on Highway 101

Five men who say their cannabis and cash were stolen by Rohnert Park police officers during unlawful roadside stops near the Mendocino-Sonoma county border have accused the city’s Public Safety Department of corruption, according to a federal racketeering complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The case is the third federal lawsuit filed over the last nine months against the city by people accusing its public safety officers of wrongly taking cash and marijuana during traffic stops on the highway about 40 miles north of Rohnert Park city limits.

The lawsuit names two former Rohnert Park employees investigated by the city last year for misconduct, Brendon Jacy Tatum and Joseph Huffaker, because of widening allegations they were keeping some of the pot and money seized during roadstop missions to intercept black market cash and drugs.

Those claims have grown sharper in the most recent lawsuit, which accuses the city of allowing corruption to take hold within the department. It claims the officers laundered money by using it to buy boats, vehicles and property “to conceal or disguise the nature, source, ownership and control of the proceeds of their thefts and extortion,” according to the 13-page complaint.

Rohnert Park city officials declined a request for an interview Monday and were preparing a written response to Press Democrat questions. Tatum and Huffaker couldn’t be reached for comment Monday directly or through their lawyers.

“The best case scenario is we have a chain of command up to the city manager that is totally incompetent and unaware of what’s happening in the department,” said Izaak Schwaiger, a Sebastopol attorney representing the plaintiffs. “The worst case scenario is the Department of Public Safety is an outright criminal enterprise that needs to be shut down, and that’s precisely what we’ve alleged in this complaint. We believe that to be the case.”

In addition to Tatum and Huffaker, the lawsuit names Officer Christopher Snyder, former Commander Jeffrey Taylor and former Director Brian Masterson.

The plaintiffs - Brian Payne, Jesse Schwartz, Joshua Surrat, Jason Harre and Jacob Ford - were stopped between November 2015 and October 2016 by officers they say immediately asked if there was marijuana in the vehicles, the court filing states.

Payne said in the filings he called 911 afterwards because he believed he had been robbed by two men dressed like officers who didn’t identify themselves and left with 5 pounds of cannabis and his driver’s license.

In another case, Surrat said Huffaker rolled down a window as the officers were leaving with 26 pounds of marijuana and asked him, “What strains are in here?” according to the complaint.

None of the men were charged with crimes, and in one case there was no record of the traffic stop when he showed up for a hearing date in Sonoma County Superior Court provided by the officers.

The allegations mirror those lodged against city officers in two separate lawsuits filed late last year by plaintiffs Huedell Freeman and Ezekial Flatten.

A Press Democrat investigation last year exposed the city’s aggressive stance toward drug missions outside city limits - netting more than $2.4 million in reported cash and seized assets between 2014 and 2017, far more than any other local law enforcement agency including much larger departments.

The missions, called drug interdiction, were once common practice among law enforcement agencies working together to stem drug trafficking on Highway 101, a thoroughfare between the Emerald Triangle marijuana growing region to the north and the Bay Area. Officers from several departments idled in patrol cars at the Sonoma-Mendocino county line with the goal of stopping vehicles hauling contraband.

Rohnert Park continued those missions even as departments began shifting tactics away from highway stops to focus on heroin and other serious drugs in their jurisdictions, partly in response to loosening marijuana laws.

Last year, Rohnert Park began confronting accusations of misconduct against its officers involved in these drug missions.

Tatum resigned in June while still under investigation by the city prompted by complaints by Flatten, who said officers from the city took his marijuana in December 2017.

Weeks later, Department Director Brian Masterson abruptly announced he would retire.

The city hired former Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan to examine the department’s policies and practices in response to the accusations, then tightened its policies for booking evidence and for supervising officers.

In March, Rohnert Park City Council members received a report that an investigation found Huffaker had “engaged in misconduct that warrants termination.” The city agreed to pay $75,000 to Huffaker in a settlement and he agreed not to sue the city.

In their federal racketeering lawsuit, the five plaintiffs claim that “between 2014 and 2017, defendants Tatum and Huffaker conducted hundreds of stops and unlawful searches, outside of the city limits, while personally enriching themselves from the thefts of marijuana and cash.”

They claim the city and department brass failed to follow “contemporary law enforcement standards,” such as requiring officers “report when they were on duty and engaged in interdiction activities outside limits” and report traffic stops to dispatch or supervisors, according to the complaint.

Members of the so-called interdiction team had the discretion to seize marijuana and cash without documenting it or following common chain-of-custody procedures for how law enforcement officers take contraband into evidence and document its destruction, the complaint states.

The five stops all occurred between November 2015 and October 2016 between Geyserville and Cloverdale. All involved California residents, although some have left the state since, according to Schwaiger.

Payne said the officers who pulled him over Nov. 24, 2015, near the Highway 101 Asti exit had no department insignia and didn’t identify themselves.

They took 5 pounds of cannabis from his vehicle then “threatened to arrest Mr. Payne for felony marijuana sales if he didn’t leave, so Mr. Payne got back in his vehicle and left the scene,” according to his complaint.

Jesse Schwartz, 32, of Guerneville said the officers took $55,000 in cash that he had stored in a box in his friend’s truck when they were pulled over Dec. 1, 2015, near Cloverdale. An officer threatened him with arrest if he didn’t sign a form saying the money wasn’t his, according to the filing.

Surrat, 36, who has since moved to Port Townsend, Washington, said he was pulled over sometime in December 2015 by an officer who made a U-turn across the highway median and followed him south for a considerable distance, the document states.

Surrat was handcuffed and denied having cannabis in the vehicle when the officers asked, but they searched anyway and found 26 pounds of marijuana, according to the lawsuit.

Jason Harre, 50, of Redway said he put Huffaker and Tatum on the phone with a Los Angeles dispensary staff member and an attorney who vouched for the 34 pounds of cannabis in his truck during his Oct. 3, 2016 traffic, stop near Asti.

The officers, who wore commando-like uniforms with tactical vests marked “ATF,” took the marijuana plus $7,000 and gave him a citation for illegal cannabis, the complaint said.

The officers questioned him “about the techniques he used to grow the cannabis, what strains he was transporting, and other questions which Mr. Harre believed would only be relevant to a broker of marijuana looking to sell another person’s product.

Jacob Ford, 43, of Las Vegas, said the officers took an unspecified amount of cannabis from his truck during an Oct. 18, 2016, traffic stop near Asti that he had packaged and labeled with barcodes.

“The officers then told him he had a choice: He could surrender the cannabis to them and he would be free to go on his way, or they would arrest him for a felony,” the complaint said.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.