Sukey Lewis
02-03-2025
Sonoma County code inspectors discovered a large illegal indoor cannabis operation on the property of former Rohnert Park Sgt. Brendan Jacy Tatum last year, according to records recently obtained by KQED.
Tatum is free on a $100,000 bond while awaiting sentencing for federal extortion, tax evasion and conspiracy charges connected to a string of marijuana seizures he conducted as a police officer, first reported by KQED in 2018. Tatum pleaded guilty in 2021 and is expected to testify at the trial of Joseph Huffaker, his former partner.
“This looks bad, especially with my case being for the same issue,” Tatum told officials during the March 27, 2024, inspection, internal documents obtained by KQED show. “I made a mistake, I know. I’m just trying to make some money and get things squared away for my family before I go to prison.”
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Tatum’s defense attorney, Stuart Hanlon, said his client was renting out a large barn on his multi-acre Santa Rosa property, but “he did not know they were growing pot.” According to Hanlon, Tatum “immediately reported” the enforcement action to his pretrial services officer, Josh Libby. In a phone call with a KQED reporter, Libby said he could not speak to the media. The United States Attorney’s office declined to comment.
The county cited both Tatum and his tenant, Kylie Bradley Hargis, for cannabis violations, documents show. Hargis could not immediately be reached for comment. Neither Hargis nor Tatum faced criminal action or further investigation, according to Sonoma County officials. Tatum paid a $7,500 fine.
“I personally know Tatum to have ruined the lives of dozens and dozens and dozens of marijuana farmers out there,” said defense and civil rights attorney Izaak Schwaiger, who represented many of Tatum’s victims. He said it is hard to see the lack of consequences as anything other than preferential treatment. “ At some point, the system has zero integrity if they refuse to follow through and put the hammer on this guy.”
This is the latest twist in a legal saga that’s dragged on for years.
Beginning in 2013, Tatum was on Rohnert Park’s drug interdiction and civil asset forfeiture task force, which seized around $3.6 million and at least 2.5 tons of marijuana over five years. He was promoted to sergeant and honored as the “officer of the year” by Rohnert Park city leaders, even as whispers that Tatum didn’t play by the rules began to mount.
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In 2018, KQED reported on the allegations of eight motorists who claimed Tatum and his partners had unlawfully seized marijuana and cash from them during pretextual traffic stops. The city ultimately paid over $1.8 million in 2020 to settle a civil lawsuit with plaintiffs who alleged officers were acting like an organized crime ring by taking 330 pounds of marijuana from them and seizing $55,000.
In 2021, Tatum and Huffaker were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly using their authority as police officers to extort people, taking large quantities of cannabis “without reporting or checking the seized property into evidence, or documenting or reporting the stop and seizure.” Huffaker has maintained his innocence.
Tatum and Huffaker were among the first former peace officers to be officially decertified under a California law that went into effect in January 2023.
In an email, Huffaker’s attorney said his client “looks forward to proving his innocence.” As part of Tatum’s plea deal, he is expected to testify against Huffaker at trial, which, after numerous delays, is scheduled to begin in July.
One of Tatum’s victims, a Texas resident named Zeke Flatten, said it was hard to imagine how the former drug interdiction specialist could fail to notice cannabis cultivation on his own property. If federal prosecutors and pretrial services were notified and did nothing, Flatten said, “they betrayed me.”
“I should have been made aware of this as a victim,” he said.
Tatum’s lawyer said the March 27, 2024, inspection was the result of “ a complaint about a chicken coop” and that the discovery of the cannabis was incidental.
However, the application (PDF) for the warrant shows that code enforcement officer Todd Hoffman had acquired aerial footage of Tatum’s property and saw evidence of cannabis cultivation, including large AC units running on a “relatively cool [53 degrees Fahrenheit] spring morning.” He also noted obscured windows “presumably to stop the entry of light and create a vestibule entryway,” another hallmark of indoor cannabis cultivation.
Hoffman’s declaration details additional unpermitted construction, but it is largely focused on suspected cannabis violations. Hoffman cited Tatum’s federal conviction related to “a series of traffic stops and marijuana robberies” and attached Tatum’s federal indictment.
Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Shelly J. Averill signed the inspection warrant (PDF).
Code enforcement officials were accompanied by a Sonoma County deputy sheriff to search Tatum’s Santa Rosa property. Tatum told inspectors that “the front barn was being rented out to an acquaintance for the purpose of growing cannabis,” according to documents, and that he did not have the key. The barn’s electricity was supplied through an unpermitted trench running from Tatum’s 6,000-square-foot agricultural structure.
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“I could smell the strong odor of cannabis,” Hoffman noted in documents.
At some point, Hargis arrived to let inspectors into the barn, where three rooms for cultivating cannabis had been constructed. Inspectors found (PDF) about 500 plants growing in one of the rooms, documents show. A second room had “an abundance of black trash bags full of recently harvested and dried stems.” The third, smaller room contained four or five large “mother plants” for the purpose of cloning.
“I mean, you don’t have a thousand marijuana plants so that you can treat glaucoma,” said Schwaiger, who questioned why the county didn’t bring charges against Tatum.
Code enforcement manager Tyra Harrington said it’s county policy to treat cannabis cultivation as a land-use issue, not a criminal matter, even though state law still forbids the unlicensed commercial cultivation and sale of marijuana.
Harrington said her department does not investigate potential illicit cannabis sales or tax evasion issues. She pointed out that the sheriff was part of the inspection, and if they considered it “a criminal matter, they certainly would have taken action at the time.”
Sgt. Juan Valencia, spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said cannabis enforcement “has nothing to do with us” and that a deputy was present simply to provide security in case the property owner had guns or resisted in some way. He referred all questions to Harrington’s department.
The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office said in an email it did not receive “any police reports” about Tatum or Hargis’s cannabis violations.
“Mr. Tatum told me that he was growing cannabis for the money and as well as renting out the trailers for the money,” Harrington said. She said she had no interaction with Hargis. Tatum removed the plants within one day and paid the fine.
Harrington said Tatum’s property is still out of compliance with other county codes. In March 2024, inspectors found a host of additional violations, including unpermitted barn extensions, electrical service to the agricultural barn and three travel trailers being used as housing. She said Tatum has been working with the code enforcement ombudsman and the building and planning department to try and bring everything into compliance.
“ I’m not a big fan of locking people up in boxes,” Schwaiger said. “But I’m a lot less of a fan of the hypocrisy attendant to this kind of a case where you have someone charged with enforcing the law and who has put countless people in jail for the exact same thing now profiting off of it.
“That makes me want to puke.”
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