FLASHBACK: Ex-Harris Aide Once Arrested After Claiming To Be Part Of 3,000-Year-Old Masonic Police Force

A staffer working for then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris was arrested years ago for impersonating a law enforcement officer after he claimed to be part of a police department affiliated with the Freemasons, according to multiple reports from the time.

Harris’ former deputy director of community affairs Brandon Kiel in 2015 sent a series of letters and made multiple phone calls to law enforcement agencies across California seeking to set up meetings on behalf of the so-called Masonic Fraternal Police Department (MFPD) — a fake police organization he claimed to be the “chief deputy director” of — The Sacramento Bee reported at the time. Kiel eventually secured a meeting with Capt. Roosevelt Johnson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, but was later arrested after failing to answer basic questions about the masonic police department’s purported mission and jurisdiction.

Police arrested Kiel alongside two others: David Henry, who identified himself as a masonic “grandmaster” and as the leader of the faux police force as well as a woman named Tonette Hayes, the Los Angeles Times reported. The former Harris aide was eventually charged with six counts of impersonating an officer, though had his charges dropped in 2016 after a judge ruled that police improperly searched his vehicle.

Across two separate searches, law enforcement recovered badges, identification cards, weapons, uniforms, vehicles and other law enforcement equipment in the possession of the trio, according to Buzzfeed News. Vehicles in possession of the group had been painted to resemble police cruisers, the Bee reported.

Henry, who identified himself as Kiel’s father-in-law in a 2014