By Jon King / jking@whmi.com


Sentencing has been handed down to a man who posed as a police officer and pulled over a woman in Livingston County.

43-year-old Michael Joseph Snyder of Northfield Township pleaded guilty as charged earlier this year to a charge of false impersonation of a police officer or employee of the United States. On Wednesday he was sentenced to a year in prison, which would be time already served, plus three years of supervised release.

Snyder was charged following an incident in October of 2019 on I-96 in Livingston County. A woman says she was pulled over by Snyder after she passed his 2015 Ford F-250 truck, but was immediately suspicious after Snyder started swearing at her. She also noticed that his truck had Texas license plates. When she questioned him, she says Snyder claimed to be a federal agent. She drove off after telling Snyder she didn’t believe him, but then followed the truck onto US-23 until it exited at M-36.

Snyder was later arrested at his home in Northfield Township where illegally installed red and blue flashing lights were found on his truck. Authorities also discovered a large assortment of tactical gear and weapons inside his home. Snyder told police he owned an online retail company that sold police tactical gear, but further investigation indicated Snyder had been accused of impersonating a police officer in previous incidents in Ann Arbor and Texas.

Snyder’s attorney, Mark Gatesman of Howell, argued that those were unproven accusations that should not impact his sentence.