Former Bay Area Officers Sentenced in Scheme to Steal Weed During Traffic Stops

Two former Rohnert Park police officers were sentenced Wednesday to federal prison for their involvement in a scheme to steal and resell marijuana from people they pulled over along Highway 101.

Former Officer Joseph Huffaker was sentenced to 20 months in federal custody. His partner and former Sgt. Brendon Jacy Tatum was sentenced to 30 months. Both sentences are to be followed by three years of supervised release.

KQED first reported eight years ago on allegations from drivers who came forward to say that officers from Rohnert Park had stolen marijuana from them during traffic stops along Highway 101. Even after Wednesday’s sentencing, broader questions remain in the scandal that exposed failures in Northern California law enforcement during the final years of marijuana prohibition.

“These guys committed a lot of crimes,” said Huedell Freeman, one of Tatum’s victims. “They’re only being taken to account on a few of them.”

Shortly after a federal grand jury indicted the two officers in 2021, Tatum pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate. Huffaker fought the charges but was convicted by a federal jury last summer of six counts including conspiracy, extortion, falsifying records and impersonating a federal officer.

Huffaker’s attorney declined to comment on whether he will appeal.

He was initially set for sentencing in April, but in an unusual move, Judge Maxine M. Chesney delayed it to coincide with Tatum’s sentencing. Chesney wanted to consider the penalties for the two codefendants in tandem to account for their relative culpability.

This was to Huffaker’s benefit. Prosecutors had sought 62 months in prison for Huffaker initially, but last week downgraded that ask to 40 months in recognition of Tatum’s larger role in the scheme. The government asked the judge to sentence Tatum to 46 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Attorneys for both men asked for home confinement.

Tatum’s role as “the heavy in this case” is undisputed, the judge said at last month’s hearing. Tatum testified at trial that he stole hundreds of pounds of cannabis over dozens of traffic stops between 2014 and 2016, raking in about $500,000. It was only in late 2017 — on the eve of recreational marijuana legalization — that Tatum said he cut Huffaker in on the scheme.

“It does happen that you cooperate down,” said Tom Rybarczyk, a former federal prosecutor who is now with Kelley Drye & Warren.

Chesney said she does not think it is a “good idea” for the government to make these kinds of deals. But she said that was not Tatum’s fault, and he deserved consideration for cooperating.
She also said that Huffaker should not be penalized for exercising his right to trial.

“At least there’s some accountability,” said Zeke Flatten, another victim of the scheme.

Huffaker and Tatum both addressed the judge directly and apologized to the victims for their involvement.

“I sincerely regret the decisions and actions I have made that brought me here today,” Huffaker wrote in a letter to the judge. “8 [sic] years ago, I should have made a different choice, but I didn’t, and I am owning up to that.”

“As a police officer for 14 years, I took an oath to protect and serve but I broke that oath,” Tatum wrote. “I made the selfish and criminal decision to steal marijuana from people I arrested and profit from it. I did it because I was being greedy, living beyond my means, and trying to build a life that looked better than the one I came from.”

Freeman said the remorse Tatum expressed felt genuine, but he added that Huffaker has never acknowledged his role in things or taken accountability for his actions. 

Tatum will have to pay $20,000 in restitution to Barron Lutz, $278,145.70 in restitution to the IRS, and forfeit $198,854.30 to the government. Huffaker will have to pay $20,000 in restitution to Lutz and a $600 special assessment.

Freeman said the remorse Tatum expressed felt genuine, but that Huffaker has never acknowledged his role in things or taking accountability for his actions.

Tatum’s defense attorney Stuart Hanlon asked the judge to take into account the difficulties that his client experienced early on. Tatum was raised by a single mother and never acknowledged by his biological father, a football player for the Oakland Raiders, according to court filings.

“It could sound like you’re being tear-jerky, but I think it had a huge effect on him,” Hanlon said.

In 2005, when he was 22 years old, Tatum shot and killed a person in the line of duty. It was found to be self-defense, but Hanlon said it affected the young officer who was just eight months out of the police academy.

Chesney said this behavior by Tatum was not an isolated incident of someone acting out, but a “calculated decision to make money.”

Thanks to the yearslong delays in this case, Tatum has also had an unusual opportunity to prove his rehabilitation, Hanlon said. His probation officer recommended that Tatum receive just 24 months in prison in light of these mitigating factors.

“I am proud that Mr. Tatum is my last client,” Hanlon said.

Hanlon, who is retiring after the case, said Tatum has been rehabilitated and asked what it would serve to send him to prison.

But Tatum’s record as an officer is not unblemished. While serving as an officer in 2014, Tatum was found to have violated a couple’s Fourth Amendment rights when he entered the back door of their home without a warrant and with his gun drawn. He also was placed on the Sonoma County district attorney’s so-called Brady list of officers with credibility issues due to shifting testimony dating back to 2015.

In 2024, while awaiting sentencing, Tatum was busted by Sonoma County Code Enforcement for renting out his barn for a large black market marijuana grow in a clear violation of the terms of his pretrial release. Prosecutors did not mention this violation in their sentencing memorandum, and the judge did not address it.

The judge said likely no one would be happy with her decisions, but “I did not come to any of these decisions lightly.”

“Any time for a police officer in custody is actually a significant amount of time,” Rybarczyk said. “ People in custody do not like police officers.”

Chesney said she was sensitive to the safety concerns for the former officers and recommended that the Bureau of Prisons place Tatum and Huffaker in minimum security prison camps.

Chesney granted Hanlon’s request to let Tatum remain out of custody until Jan. 11, 2027, after this year’s fire season, in light of his job with Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service. Huffaker is set to surrender on Sep. 15.