SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge shot down claims that a cadre of corrupt law enforcement officials conspired to extort cash and cannabis from Northern California pot farmers under the guise of enforcing marijuana laws.
In a ruling late Friday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston called the complaint “larded with conclusory and speculative allegations,” about a complex hub and spoke racketeering conspiracy with Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office at the center.
Attorney William Cohan said there’s a trove of circumstantial evidence supporting claims that dirty cops were robbing and extorting legal marijuana growers with impunity, then selling their ill-gotten seizures on the black market while the Mendocino County Sheriff and District Attorney covered it up.
He said Sheriff Tom Allman, Undersheriff Randy Johnson and District Attorney David Eyster also extorted growers by instituting programs wherein farmers would have to pay bribes in order to grow medical cannabis and prevent their farms from being eradicated.
“They created ordinances that were clearly in violation of state and federal law, extorting money by the district attorney and the sheriff through the so-called restitution and zip ties programs. But once it became possible to grow cannabis legally the defendants and their co-conspirators were unable to muster the essential self-restraint,” Cohan said at a hearing Friday as he urged Illston not to toss the growers’ racketeering lawsuit.
They are also accused of covering up the actions of dirty cops like Brendon “Jacy” Tatum and partner Joseph Huffaker, two former Rohnert Park policemen who were indicted in 2021 for posing as federal agents to rob motorists along Highway 101 of cash and cannabis.
According to the criminal complaint, the two officers are said to have seized thousands of pounds of weed and hundreds of thousands of dollars without making arrests, reporting crimes or issuing receipts for the seized goods.
Tatum has since pleaded guilty to extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion.
Illston said she was inclined to dismiss the case. “The allegations, though lengthy and quite interesting are speculative and conclusory and just don’t amount to a RICO claim,” she said.
Cohan said Tatum and Huffaker operated in Mendocino County “with not only the consent but the active coverup by the sheriff” under which Tatum issued a press release at Allman’s direction that took credit for robbing plaintiff Ezekiel Flatten. The lawsuit claims Tatum released the press statement to protect former Mendocino County Sheriff’s Sgt. Bruce Smith, who was actually there with Huffaker.
Smith is named as a defendant in the case along with former California Department of Fish and Wildlife Lt. Steve White, with whom he allegedly conspired to steal marijuana from growers for later sale on the black market by using phony search warrants for water violations to gain access to growers’ properties.
Cohan said he’s since gathered evidence of a warehouse in Ukiah where the extorted cannabis has been stored and a trucking company transporting it around the United States, as well as a Mendocino County Sheriff’s lieutenant who currently lives on the warehouse premises, ostensibly to protect the ill-gotten weed. Cohan told Illston that he would like to add Lt. Jason Caudillo and the trucking company owner as defendants.
“They’re involved in the storage and transportation of the extort cannabis,” he said.
“So tell me what exactly these folks did,” Illston said.
“Caudillo lives within a fenced area that contains the warehouse. He lives there and we have photos of his official vehicle right there,” Cohan said, adding that the warehouse is said to store wood finishes, but is also surrounded by security cameras and razor wire.
“It’s all circumstantial evidence at this point. We can’t get search warrants, we can’t conduct raids. We need subpoena power to gather more circumstantial evidence, unless we get more indictments of any, some, or all of these co-conspirators,” he said, noting that the grand jury investigation that indicted Tatum and Huffaker is ongoing and that he believes Huffaker and Tatum are cooperating. “We anticipate some of these defendants will also be indicted.”
“Our clients are destined to put corrupt law enforcement out of business. They’ve been hiding behind the federal prohibition to justify what they were doing,” Cohan said, adding that generations of corrupt cops have been trying to make money off of illegal cannabis seized from growers, but the well is drying up as more states legalize the drug, including California.
“If enough people get licenses and we get rid of the corrupt cops, pretty soon California is going to be like Colorado, raising missions of dollars to support public education and not a cadre of corrupt cops,” he said.
John Scott, another attorney representing the growers, said Illston should allow the plaintiffs to add more evidence to their complaint.
“We believe the missing piece of the puzzle was how was the marijuana that was being taken from our clients and other growers — if it wasn’t being buried — what was happening to it? We believe we are able to identify at least one person associated with a warehouse who is storing the marijuana who associated with to other co-conspirators,” Scott said. “You have Lt. Caudillo living in a double-wide trailer right next to the warehouse. What is he doing there and why is he living there? It just raises an inference that he’s there to protect the cannabis.”
He also said the trucking company owner has close ties to Sheriff Allman and is “practically neighbors” with Bruce Smith.
“We can connect all those dots. He’s got a trucking company that has been transporting, we believe, marijuana from Mendocino County.”
Scott said they don’t have direct evidence yet but can get it through discovery and bank records subpoenas.
But Illston found the growers’ lawsuit fell so far short of specifics that she didn’t believe it could be salvaged and declined to allow the growers to amend their complaint as requested.
“In sum, the First Amended Complaint does not contain any plausible, non-conclusory, non-speculative allegations of criminal activity by either defendant or the Mendocino County alleged co-conspirators, much less a pattern of racketeering activity necessary for a RICO claim,” she wrote, adding that aside from Huffaker and Tatum’s highway robbery scheme, the other alleged extortion activity "consists of facially legitimate law enforcement activities.”
Scott and Cohan did not return calls seeking comment on the ruling. Attorneys for Smith and White could not be reached by phone or email late Friday.
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