Former Rohnert Park police officers sentenced in marijuana extortion scheme
Two former Rohnert Park police officers were sentenced to prison on Wednesday for their roles in a marijuana extortion scheme in which they posed as federal agents to shake down people who possessed marijuana, prosecutors said.
Following a week-long federal trial, a jury in July 2025 convicted 41-year-old Joseph Huffaker of Rohnert Park of extortion under color of official right, falsifying records in a federal investigation, impersonating a federal officer, and conspiracy, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California said in a press release on Wednesday. The trial followed the December 2021 guilty pleas by 43-year-old Jacy Tatum of Santa Rosa of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right, falsifying records in a federal investigation, and tax evasion. Tatum also testified as a witness in Huffaker's trial, the office said.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in San Francisco sentenced Huffaker to 20 months in federal prison, and sentenced Tatum to 30 months.
Between 2014 and 2017, Huffaker and Tatum, officers with the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety, conspired to pull over drivers they suspected of possessing significant amounts of marijuana, claiming they were federal agents and seizing their marijuana by threatening to arrest them if they contested the seizures, according to court documents.
The Rohnert Park DPS had previously conducted an drug interdiction operation between 2014 and 2017, stopping vehicles along U.S. Highway 101 between Cloverdale and Rohnert Park. Huffaker and Tatum began their extortion scheme months after the program had been disbanded, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. After their illicit marijuana seizures, which happened while the officers were off-duty and not wearing uniforms or body cameras, the two officers would sell it for profit, according to court documents.
The break in the case came in February 2018, when the FBI received a complaint from a citizen who claimed to have been shaken down by police officers on U.S. 101 and requested from Tatum the police report related to the incident. Tatum and Huffaker then falsified a police report and press release about the unlawful traffic stop and marijuana seizure, prosecutors said. Tatum then forwarded both to an FBI agent investigating the stop.
In addition to his guilty pleas, Tatum admitted that he also stole marijuana from the Rohnert Park police station. Tatum's activities netted him over $400,000 in illicit proceeds, prosecutors said.
Huffaker will begin serving his sentence in September, while Tatum will begin serving his sentence on January 2027.
Besides the prison terms, the judge also sentenced Huffaker and Tatum to a three-year period of supervised release and ordered restitution in the amount of $301,145.70 for Tatum and $20,000 for Huffaker, prosecutors said.
