Kevin Wade Farnquist was sentenced this morning in the 50th Circuit Court by Judge James Lambros.
Farnquist was found guilty on December 10, 2025, of Impersonating a Police Officer to commit a crime under MCL 750.215(3). He was also be sentenced as a habitual 4th offender. Pursuant to Farnquist’s Michigan Sentence Guidelines, he was sentenced to 30 months- 15 years in prison. He will not be eligible for parole until he serves at least 30 months and the sentence issued by the Court will be consecutive to two of his other convictions as he was on parole at the time of the offense.
In November of 2024, while on Parole from the Michigan Department of Corrections, Farnquist contacted a senior citizen though texting. Farnquist claimed to be Under-Sheriff Ryan Hering from the Chippewa County Sheriff’s Office and demanded credit card information from the citizen, or he would arrest her son and lodge him in jail and that he would have the car towed and impounded due to defective equipment. The citizen provided her credit card information in response to the demands. Two days later the citizen, notified the Sheriff’s Department, about the text messages. After an investigation was conducted, it was determined that Kevin Farnquist had sent the messages demanding payment and attempted to delete his messages from his phone.
Farnquist’s actions that day not only negatively affected the individual who received the message, but he also risked tarnishing the good name and reputation of one of our hard-working law enforcement officers. In our County impersonating a police officer is a serious crime and I will treat it as such. It takes a lot of time, hard work, dedication and sacrifice to be a Law Enforcement Officer, and by pretending to be one to take an advantage of one of our citizens will not be tolerated. It will result in a Felony Conviction and incarceration.
If you receive a suspicious message demanding credit card information from law enforcement, please contact your local police agency and please do not send them your credit card information as law enforcement will not ask for it.
